Question Time
This month, Hewitt Associates' Jerry Edmondson poses a question that employers are invited to answer. The question is...
What do you do to make sure your people value your organisation's spend on benefits?
B&Q HR director Martyn Phillips "We have an annual benefits statement which shows people clearly solutions with targets their earning, size of pension fund, what company car is worth, how much they have saved on staff discounts, what their holiday is worth. They might be on £50,000 basic but their package is worth £98,000. We have been very, very clear on that statement, including your current performance and how that fits with your bonus targets.
"Employees can update it themselves by putting in their current run rate and it can predict what package they are going to receive this year. It is very dynamic. They can go in every day if money is that important to them."
Kent County Council rewards adviser Jane Vivier "The provision of benefits should be both proactive and reactive to be effective. Be proactive to put the very best new, innovative and business strategy aligned benefits in front of your employees but be react to what they ask for and provide it (as far as possible!). That way you promote confidence in the package and employees genuinely feel consulted and valued.
"Also whoever promotes benefits in the organisation should always try to make themselves available to employees and provide a confidence instilling level of service - reward and benefits should be at the core of the business not on the periphery."
20:20 Mobile Group assistant manager (fleet and benefits) compensation and benefits department Andrea Shipman
"It's one of the bits we are looking at. We have built a benefits website, which we are launching in the new few weeks. It has been built by our own IT development team with the marketing team.
"We have also been doing team briefings for the night shift workers who don't have access to the PCs. We are doing quite a bit around communication.
We are also updating the notice boards and signage with the company colours to go alongside the new benefits."
Thames Water reward and policy manager Rachael Hollings
"We have thought about doing total reward remuneration statements and it is something we may still do in the future. We have got a really big agenda at the moment of policy changes so it is another thing on the list to do. We don’t tend to highlight some of the value associated with some of the things we offer."
Surrey County Council senior policy and employee practice consultant Jayne Yates
"Employees can see their flexible benefits spend come out of their salary on their pay slip. We don’t contribute anything, so it is purely voluntary.
Their pension is also marked on their pay slip. They obviously don’t see Council's contribution they will just see their own contribution.
The main other benefits for staff are the voluntary benefits for which we get a discounted rate."
Jerry Edmondson is senior consultant with Hewitt's Communication Practice in the UK and has over 15 years' experience of designing, developing and delivering effective employee communication for organisations across a wide range of industry sectors.
His expertise includes managing the messaging of organisational change and driving the delivery of creative communication campaigns to support HR interventions ranging from pension plans to sales incentive schemes.
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