Workplace benefits
Value add or nice to have?
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With the cost of living spiralling out of control, workplace benefits have never been more valuable to your employees. Whether you're promoting savings via your employee discount scheme or helping them to build their every day savings, making sure your employees are utilising what is already on offer is key.
Communicating your existing benefits is a cost-effective way to support your employees during the current financial crisis. When did you last review the benefits and communication strategies in your organisation? Do you know the most valued benefits in the eyes of your employees?
Pension remains the most valued benefit for the third year running. This is followed by flexible working in second spot - this year however, the gap between them has shortened and they now rank equally.
Workplace benefits play a significant role in the financial health and planning for many employees. It’s interesting to see the value placed on newer benefits such as workplace savings where we see this rising from 41% last year to 52% this year which puts it on par with physical health benefits such as gym memberships. We’ve also seen a rise in financial education where more than half (52%) said they do/would value this, and 1 in 4 (26%) have access to this – a significant increase on last year.
Using employee data to help inform your benefit strategy is a good foundation. Not only will it mean that your reward and recognition reflects the needs of the workforce, it will also ensure the support you have in place is of value to your employees. Using this same data to inform your communication strategy will enable tailored content to be delivered to the people who need it, when they need it most making it much more impactful and relevant to the intended audience.
Question: Which of the following benefits do you have available to you through work, and how important are they to you?
LCP viewpoint
Josh Hayes, Associate Consultant, LCP
It is fascinating to see the difference in the benefits employees have available vs what they value or would value...
...It is vital that employers understand their workforce to ensure that they are supporting them with the benefits that they need and want. We have seen throughout this report that every workforce, industry and individual, is different so a ‘one size fits all’ approach isn’t going to be successful.
If employees say that they don’t value a benefit, this doesn’t necessarily mean that this doesn’t have value to them. From my experience, a lack of financial education can lead to many employees not understanding how or why a particular benefit may be of use to them. This education and communication need is sometimes more basic, I have seen many examples where employees state they don’t have a benefit available but, in actual fact they do and they just aren’t aware of it.
The provider market is a vast, varied and a rapidly evolving landscape. This presents a challenge for employers when selecting which benefits to offer and who to use to supply it. Employers may find that they have providers in place who offer financial wellbeing support, however this doesn’t mean that they are the best provider for the needs of their workforce. Employers should always ascertain whether the provider is genuinely adding value or simply ticking a box.
Two common examples within the provider market:
- Where financial education is offered by a product provider, is it truly providing independent financial education or do all roads lead towards their product?
- Where financial information/education is available online, is it relevant and specific to your workforce or is it sharing information already available in the public domain such as Money Helper content?
From our research of over 150 providers combined with our experience in building financial wellbeing strategies with organisations, there isn’t one provider who can solve financial wellbeing for everyone. Each workforce will require different types of support and the providers and products used successfully for one organisation wont necessarily have the same success at another.
My top tips for employers:
- Use data or employee surveys to understand your workforce and the challenges they are facing
- Engage with existing providers and the wider market to understand the types of support available
- Educate and engage the workforce to ensure that they know why and how the products can help them.