Insight, strategy and best practice in voluntary benefits from Asperity Issue no.2 - November 2007
Inside this issue: vbexcellence’07 - research update Looking at language; BATS in benefits Getting Green & Ethical with your VB proposition What does “good“ MI look like?
Benefits Connection from Asperity
Welcome This is the 2nd Benefits Connection supplement and it is an exciting and testing time for the voluntary benefits industry. It’s likely that 5 years from now the market will look and feel very different from today with only the strongest, value-led products surviving and new ideas constantly snapping at the heels of established VB concepts. The concerns of employers in how to meet green and ethical aspirations is almost a cliché and yet still quite poorly addressed. From carbon-offsetting business travel miles, to the whole CSR agenda there is a lot to do. But we have to start somewhere, and in this issue we take a look at including a green or ethical (‘grethical’ ‘ethigreen’?) choice in employee discounts.
Contents 02. Welcome 03. Consolidation in VB
By Helen Craik, Director of HR Policy & Strategy at Asperity
04. Building the business case: BATS in benefits
Lloyds TSB Registrars recently sold its bringme voluntary benefits business to Asperity Employee Benefits in a deal which saw Asperity take over responsibility for the employee discount schemes of some 41 corporate employers, including a number of FTSE100 names. Equiniti, the new owners of Lloyds TSB Registrars, will concentrate on its core strengths of share registration, flexible benefits and pensions. This raises the question of whether more benefits providers, many of which currently operate across a spectrum of different benefits, will look at narrowing their area of operation to specialise in a particular product.
07. What does “good“ Management Information look like? 08. Voluntary Benefits Research Update 10. “Grethical“ Benefits - getting green and ethical with your VB proposition
Reach out and touch
We also publish the first results from our vbexcellence’07 survey. The full document will be available early next year but there are some interesting insights at this stage. Keeping close to what employers want from their VB portfolio is a key requirement for us, and the best way to do that is to ask them.
It is difficult to comment on whether there is further scope for consolidation; assessing the reach of those involved can be tricky. An employee base of over 200,000 transferred from bringme onto Asperity’s Reward Gateway platform, giving Reward Gateway an audience for its employee discounts scheme of over half a million employees. A number of other VB providers also have a large reach, with Motivano for example having more than 1 million employees at 250 organisations, but this figure covers its UK and US services. NextJump is coy about its employee-base but to date operates primarily in the US. Thomsons Online Benefits offer a range of software, consultancy and communication services and expects to have over 300,000 employees globally by the end of this year. This diversity of reporting means it isn’t easy to ascertain the pecking order of employee reach in the UK amongst the major VB players.
Finally, a mention for two Asperity initiatives. First, on the back page you’ll find details of our Christmas offer, order Reward Gateway before November 18 and we guarantee pre-Christmas implementation plus a free personalised Christmas card for every employee and we now have a new product specifically for SMEs – full details of this are on www.asperity.co.uk/sme or give us a call on 020 7655 4364. Best wishes
Glenn Elliott MD, Asperity Employee Benefits glenn@asperity.co.uk
All information correct at the time of writing and subject to change without notice. Register now at http://vip.rewardgateway.co.uk to see for yourself what your scheme could look like.
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And 2 become 1: consolidation in VB
Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd, Unit 3, 11-29 Fashion Street, London. E1 6PX. Tel 020 7655 4364 www.asperity.co.uk email benefits@asperity.co.uk © Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd 2007
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Provider
Corporate Clients
Employee Base
Notes
Motivano
250
1million
US&UK Range of services
Thomsons Online
200+
300,000
Global
NextJump
US based
Asperity 100 600,000
VB only UK only
You at Work 190
600,000
VB flex TRS
Grassroots
US based
Just good friends It’s clear from comments by both George Farrow, Senior Product Manager at Equiniti, who oversaw the bringme transfer and Glenn Elliott, Asperity’s MD that consolidation in the market doesn’t necessarily mean acrimony. On the contrary, both parties approached the acquisition from the strategic viewpoint of allowing each to concentrate on their key areas of expertise. For Equiniti, this is share registration, pensions and flexible benefits, areas which Asperity, the specialist in voluntary benefits, does not do now and does not intend to enter. George Farrow said :”we placed the bringme business in the safe hands of a specialist who really understood how to look after these employers and employees.” For industry observers, the interesting question is who’s next?
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Building the business case: Part 1 – BATS in benefits Would the acronym BATS - Benefits Additional To Salary - serve the industry well? What do we mean by ‘employee benefits’? The case for employee benefits needs every member of the audience to understand the terminology, requiring: • •
a shift in language from the current confused and confusing terms; and the distillation of benefits offered into an accessible format.
Only then can the value of a benefits proposition be set out for decision-making. It’s time the benefits industry got the terminology right The term ‘voluntary benefits’ is frequently used differently by industry specialists, HR professionals and employers. Voluntary benefits providers need to provide clarity for employee end-users, as well as for the HR community. This starts with the language which needs to be straightforward for everyone so that the business case for benefits can be laid out. Drawing the picture If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a model- helps a complex set of variables make sense. Our “Fat Diamond” model (more in Part 2, published in January) for benefit evaluation, maps the key variables of: • • • •
cost hassle value to employer value to employee
resulting in a structured view of employee benefits, divided into two groups.
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The first group – depicted visually as “Fat Diamonds” in the model – is benefits that really are ‘givens’ for an organisation that aspires to offer an employment package as distinct from a straight wage. These benefits are low cost, low hassle, and offer high value to employers and employees. In this context, Fat Diamonds are cheap, easy to implement and make people cheerful. The second group is those that employers need to consider carefully because at least one of the variables means a decision will be organisationspecific: right for some companies and not for others. Part 2 of ‘Building the business case for employee benefits’ is a detailed look at the Fat Diamond model. For the model to work as a decision-making tool, the language of Benefits which are Additional To Salary (BATS) needs an overhaul.
Glossary The following terms are in common currency and are discussed below: • voluntary benefits • flexible benefits • core benefits • salary sacrifice schemes • total reward • flexible working It’s a reasonable bet that to lots of employees these terms won’t mean much. To managers outside HR, there will be confusion in defining the difference and even amongst HR professionals and reward specialists there might not be total commonality of understanding. A look at the responses in Employee Rewards Watch 20071 net quantifies the scale of confusion around terminology, with a substantial number of respondents unclear of which benefits are flexible, voluntary and/or core.
Voluntary Benefits The term ‘voluntary benefits’ describes a benefit for which an employee chooses to pay – a benefit for which s/he has ‘volunteered’. In the industry, ‘voluntary benefits’ also includes ‘salary sacrifice’ arrangements, a sub-sector descriptor with which most employees will not be familiar and won’t understand. The CIPD definition of ‘voluntary benefits’ is “where employers arrange bulk discounts with external providers”.2 Many people, however, would refer to discounts arranged by employers for employees as ‘employee discounts’ and that is an improvement, the meaning being obvious. In addition most people would accept that Cycle to Work and Childcare Vouchers are voluntary benefits, but they are not necessarily discounted - the benefit to staff comes from tax legislation, meaning the CIPD’s definition is not comprehensive. Then there are benefits which an employer funds but an employee may choose not to take because of tax implications, alternative arrangements or on principle; a company car which is not required for the job or medical insurance, for example. Logically, shouldn’t these be included as ‘voluntary benefits?’ Regardless of who pays, these are Benefits Additional To Salary. A mobile paid for by the employee out of gross pay under a salary sacrifice arrangement is a voluntary benefit (as well as being a salary sacrifice arrangement), as is employeepaid private medical insurance available at an advantageous rate by virtue of employment. But unlike a mobile under salary sacrifice, private medical insurance comes out of net income if it’s employee-funded (and is taxable as a benefit-in-kind if not) and so is not a ‘salary sacrifice’ benefit. Funding apart, these are both Benefits Additional To Salary.
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It’s clear how the language disengages employees and contributes to the dismal take up in some Cycle to Work and Childcare Voucher schemes. Flexible Benefits The CIPD distinguishes between ‘flexible benefits’ and ‘benefits which are flexible.’3 The former is generally accepted to be an employee trading one benefit for another choosing a benefits portfolio. Employees understand the concept and make specific choices. Amongst employers, however, the definition may be less clear-cut; the number of companies offering flexible benefits is somewhere between 10%4 and 65%5, and it is likely that this wide range is due to employers identifying different things as ‘flexible benefits’. In terms of positioning, should ‘flexible benefits’ - the ability to elect from within a range - be considered as a ‘stand-alone’ benefit, in the same way as life insurance or employee discounts, or is the flexibility simply an administrative arrangement? Is it a function of payroll and therefore classifying it as a benefit in its own right double-counting? The answer is no; ‘flex‘ appeals to many employees and is perceived as a benefit. Perception is reality and therefore a flexible benefits scheme is a Benefit Additional To Salary. Core Benefits The CIPD, discussing core benefits, finds: “Many schemes differentiate between core benefits, some parts of which are financed by the employer, and voluntary benefits, which are paid for by the employee. The core benefits are those that a best-practice employer might be expected to provide and which, though the employee might adjust them, may not be entirely removed from the package.”2 Thomsons Online defines a core benefit as “a benefit that the company insists all employees must take a minimum level of.”1 Compulsory shopping? There is agreement here that for a benefit to be ‘core’ an employee cannot opt-out of it altogether – but the confusion amongst employers is well illustrated in Thomson’s
survey when, for example, 10.7% of employers describe discounted shopping as a core benefit and 1.8% describe childcare vouchers in this way. Employers cannot prescribe that employees do discounted shopping, or that they must take childcare vouchers. The confusion comes because employers offer the benefit to all employees, but use is clearly voluntary. Salary Sacrifice A cumbersome term for (voluntary) benefits taken from an employee’s salary, the best known being: • • • •
some types of pension mobile phones childcare vouchers cycle to work
In the industry ‘salary sacrifice’ is equated with benefits paid from gross salary, with a tax advantage for the employee, and saving on employer’s NI. Confusingly, however, some employers also use it to describe benefits paid from net salary although the CIPD’s6 assertion that it refers to gross salary is more widely accepted. If employers demystify as much as possible and grasp the communications nettle, hopefully take-up of these benefits will rise - good news all round. Enlightened employers use the NI savings to fund a fuller range of BATS, for example a discounts scheme, than would otherwise be possible. There are few winwin situations in payroll and tax, but this seems to be one of them! Some employers are expanding from the ‘big 4’ salary sacrifice schemes and it is probably this widening of scope that has given rise to the net v gross confusion. Cadbury Schweppes has added a wine club to its flexible benefits scheme after employee survey feedback showed staff would value more lifestyle benefits. Through the scheme, which is offered via salary sacrifice, staff can order up to 12 cases of wine a year at a 25% discount.”7 Net or gross, all salary sacrifice arrangements are BATS. Total Reward, Total Remuneration and Total Reward Statements (TRS) Total Remuneration comprises all pay (basic, bonuses, overtime, commission and other monetary variables) and all benefits (shares, discounts, cars, pensions and the rest). Total Reward takes the concept of quantifying the total value of the employment relationship to
the employee a big step further by including training and development, equipment, culture and other important but nebulous facets of the working environment. Few organisations have got to grips with Total Reward yet, although as techniques develop specialists will pioneer work in this area. An increasing number of employers are flirting with or actually engaged with Total Remuneration. It’s a great concept: why wouldn’t employers specify to employees what their total remuneration amounts to? ‘Total Remuneration’ means more to those in the know than your person-onthe-street employee, but it is employees that need to be motivated by the real value of their earnings and to do that they have to know what it is. Total Remuneration or Reward, therefore, is not a Benefit Additional To Salary, it’s a tool, a branding mechanism and can play a role in delivering HR strategy. That doesn’t make it a ‘benefit’ in its own right and the terminology means it gets confused as such. Flexible Working Here’s an interesting one: being able to work flexibly is a huge benefit to many employees. But to include it in ‘Pay and Remuneration’, which is where ‘employee benefits’ sit, is misleading: a. often conditional on an employee’s domestic status and operational needs, it can’t automatically be ‘reversed’ and shouldn’t be connected with pay except where pro-rating is a factor; b. it is now statute-led and is no more of a ‘pay and remuneration’ issue than, say, time off for emergencies or maternity pay; c. it is aligned with working conditions and culture – is the office nice, the parking or transport convenient, the shifts conducive, hours per week suitable; it fits into Total Reward but not Total Remuneration. So flexible working doesn’t belong in the ‘reward’ section of HR. It sits more in employee relations, diversity and equality or operations and might be a factor in a Total Reward statement but not a Total Remuneration statement. continued on page 6 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Thomsons online benefits: Employee Rewards Watch Report March 2007 CIPD Benefits Factsheet April 2007 Benefits Overview CIPD February 2007 CIPD Reward Management Survey February 2007 www.personneltoday.co.uk: 12th Annual Flexible Benefits Survey September 2006
6. CIPD Factsheet February 2007 7. www.employeebenefits.co.uk February 2007
Benefits Connection from Asperity
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BATS or not? A round-up of common benefits item
benefit additional to salary or not?
note
What does “good” Management Information look like?
holiday no
although amounts vary, it is a statutory entitlement and essentially part of salary
sick pay probably not
not a statutory entitlement but, if provided, considered as part of base salary
By Helen Craik, Director of HR Policy & Strategy at Asperity
pension yes
although legally provision must be made for access to a pension, there is no requirement for it to be employer-funded (yet) and even when this comes in, a pension will still be a BATS
flexible working
not in this context
possibly part of Total Reward but not Total Remuneration
total reward statement
no
no direct benefit to employee
Realtime, online, detailed MI or take-up and use of your employee benefits - surely an essential tool for measuring the impact and value of a scheme. Good news for employees then but maybe one of the reasons providers have been slow to offer a robust and significent level of detail to their HR clients is because the results might not show their product in a very good light. It’s something of a dichotomy; don’t provide MI in which clients have confidence and easy access thereby leaving an internal vacuum or provide it and risk shooting your scheme through the heart? If seeing is believing, then seeing MI that demonstrates unsatisfactory engagement levels with a VB scheme is knowing it isn’t working.
employee discounts yes company car probably yes car allowance probably yes childcare vouchers yes cycle to work yes mobile phone yes season ticket loan yes work party probably not independent financial info yes private medical insurance yes life assurance yes permanent health/ yes critical illness insurance EAP probably not dental/optical insurance yes share schemes yes Where does that take the argument? Having sorted out the impost0rs, real BATS fall into neat categories: • pensions • cars • shares • health-related • low-cost – employee discounts, childcare vouchers, season ticket loan, life assurance. It is in the low-cost category that employers find their ‘Fat Diamonds’, of which more
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although the final purchase is paid for by the employee, the employer facilitates the benefit and the employee makes a saving much less commonly provided as a straight ‘perk’ than used to be the case, on balance the provision of a company car probably gives the employee a BATS in addition to the business requirement – if indeed there is one increasingly offered as an alternative to a company car but the BATS argument is the same taken from gross income; saving for employee taken from gross income; saving for employee taken from gross income; saving for employee saving for employee no direct employee saving but would feature on a total reward (not remuneration) statement can be generic (education) or employee-specific (advice) whether employer-funded or employee-funded at a better rate than the employee could obtain as an individual, there is a saving to the employee
no remunerative element and no direct employee saving whether employer-funded or employee-funded at a better rate than the employee could obtain as an individual, there is a saving to the employee
in see “Building the Business Case for Benefits: Part 2 – The Fat Diamond Model”. The key point in demystifying benefits language is to make it accessible to employees. It won’t take away the need to communicate and then explain the implications of, for example, childcare vouchers but it should encourage employees to give them consideration. Whereas talking about ‘salary sacrifice’ may be an accurate description of tax concession arrangements, it’s unhelpful
to use this technical phrase to market the benefit to employees. It would help employees, employers, HR professionals, and benefits providers if the language was updated and clearer. Describing all non-cash elements of remuneration as Benefits Additional To Salary, BATS, is simple way to define these. And having defined the language within the context of a professional approach to reward, the way is clear to build the business case.
Free, fully functional Abbreviated from Helen demo Craik’s of Reward White Paper; Gateway download for all readers full copy at at http://vip.rewardgateway.co.uk http://www.asperity.co.uk
Possible explanations Taking an employee discounts scheme as an example, if participation figures are low, it could be that the scheme isn’t attractive - not enough relevent offers. Or it could be that the communication isn’t right, employees don’t know about it, or awareness levels are very low, confined to an annual mention. Or, worst of all worlds, a bit of both - a poorly designed scheme which is badly implemented. Is ignornace bliss then? There is a fleeting attraction to the ‘don’t measure it, don’t have to manage it‘ argument for employers. They can tick the discounts box without being troubled by whether it’s delivering employer value. Lack of MI will also suit some VB providers because if clients don’t know, they don’t know it’s not working. Give them unfettered, unedited access to MI whenever they want it and who knows what assumptions they might start making!
Taking the Risk
2. Employee satisfaction
A discounts scheme which gives open access to clients- so much more telling than the provider generated MI report - is undoubtedly putting its information where its mouth is.
Repeated transactions and regular use are a good indicator of employee satisfaction with your benefits system and don’t forget the old truism- even if they don’t use it, employees want a scheme.
Providers who offer “open MI“ know that the right sheme, properly implemented and communicated will deliver the right figures. No more ‘trust us, we’re benefits providers.‘ Bring it on seeing is believing!
Are there any downsides to having this information?
What MI do you need? In order to get the most out of a discount scheme, you need to be able to track how effective the scheme is currently. This means the availability of effective, coherent and transparent management information, i.e. accessible and relevant statistics, including: • number of employees engaged • number of logins per user • email communications statistics • number of offers viewed • number of actual completed transactions • total amount of employee spend • total savings
Employers can include information about the sale of their own discounted products and services which have been integrated within the scheme. If interest is low, it could suggest to the employer that belief in their product within their company was also low. For providers, the risk is that the MI will show their product in an unreliable light. But this gives the opportunity for provider and employer to work together on increasing employee engagement, providing the scheme is well-designed and relevant and the provider has the communications expertise. What next? Intergrating employee savings from VB onto a total rewards statement. Coming soon to a payslip near you!
This helps employers in two key ways 1. Employee involvement = Employer value for money
A payslip plus Cashback Basic Salary
£26,000
Management information allows targeting of the benefits scheme to do exactly what it is designed to do- provide employees with discounted services and products. Without regular updates and statistics to see how best the scheme can be tailored then money is being spent on a scheme which is not working to its full ability.
Overtime, allowances
£8,320
Bonus
£1,100
Car allowance
£4,600
PMI
£560
Employer Pension Contribution £1,050 Cashback £392 Total Remuneration
£42,022
Benefits Connection from Asperity
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Voluntary Benefits Research Update from VBexcellence07 By Alan Voyle MMRS, Director of Research, Alan Voyle Associates
Current Voluntary Benefit Provision Among the voluntary benefits adopted, the provision of childcare vouchers is clearly the most universal, with some 86% of respondents having chosen this option. Least popular of the mainstream options is mobile phone salary sacrifice. Fewer than 10% have adopted this, and approaching 70% say that it has no place in their current plans. Discount schemes have achieved considerable popularity, being operated by 55% of the respondents. And of the remainder a further 31% are currently considering implementation, leaving only 14% for whom it has no priority in their benefits plans.
Responses to the survey are still coming in, and we will publish a full analysis once all have given us their opinion. But here as a taster is a sample of the feedback received to date.
In this health-conscious era it is good to see cycle to work schemes raising their heads above company horizons. Although currently implemented by only 29%, there are obviously a lot of HR managers thinking of both staff wellbeing and developing a green culture, as a further 44% are actively considering the proposition
Broad range of Company Size
Childcare Vouchers
With numbers of surveys returned already well into three figures, we have been encouraged by achieving a representative response from company sizes right across the board – from below 500 employees to over 50,000.
100%
Responding Company Size
Mobile Phone Salary Sacrifice 70%
80%
60% 50%
60%
40%
30%
40%
30% 20%
20%
10%
25%
0
0 Provide
Considering
No plans to implement
Cycle to Work Scheme
20%
Provide
Considering
No plans to implement
Employee Discount Scheme
70%
15%
60%
70%
50%
60% 50%
40%
10%
40% 30% 30% 20% 20%
5%
10%
0
0 Provide
Employees
<500
5011,000
1,0012,500
2,5015,000
5,00110,000
Individual respondent responsibilities
Levels of Responsibility
Similarly we have achieved the balance of authority we had hoped for among the mangers completing the questionnaires. actively considering the proposition.
50%
10,001- 50,000+ 50,000
40%
Considering
No plans to implement
20%
10% 0 Decision maker on benefits
Responsible for recommending benefits
Member of the benefits team
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Provide
Considering
Diversity in opinion
Key features of discount scheme
The questionnaire was planned to include a high proportion of open questions. But with such a high number of free text responses in the questionnaire analysis is proving time-consuming. However, already there are some fascinating messages emerging.
As an example of diverse priorities, the question on the key feature for them of a discount scheme provided a quite surprising range of answers.
The most intriguing revelation is that no single question has received consistently similar answers. It has become very evident that every company has its own aims, its own cultural imperatives, its own constraints, and these in turn drive a unique agenda with its individual set of priorities.
30%
0
10%
0
There is a strong message here for benefits providers in that one size most certainly does not fit all. Nothing can be taken for granted, and flexibility is an essential attribute for any benefits product offering.
The leading response received was that the scheme should be relevant to their staff and therefore fit for purpose. Behind this thinking is of course the potential nightmare of installing a scheme then experiencing low take-up by the intended beneficiaries. A scheme that achieves complete employee buy-in is therefore the holy grail that delivers tangible benefit to employer and employee alike. Even so, this response accounted for only some 30% of the replies. A further 25% went for simplicity of implementation and operation. Quite obviously finding a scheme that minimises the administrative workload is vitally important in a climate where admin overheads are under constant pressure.
No plans to implement
Allied to this sentiment were a smaller number who homed straight in on affordability, seeking minimal direct operating costs. Another large segment of 25% took the altruistic approach and thought simply of the quality of the deliverables to their staff, looking for variety of choice of offer, real value discounts and so on. Bringing up the rear was a miscellany of mainly strategic needs, particularly suitability their IT network, alignment with corporate objectives, suitability for non-PC users, friends & family access, and many more. Watch this space Each of the other questions has provided a diversity of responses. They will be reported on once the survey is closed. So watch this space for more revelations.
Benefits Connection from Asperity
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“Grethical” Benefits- getting green and ethical with your VB proposition By Victoria Townley, Specialist Marketing at Asperity Climate change has been a concern for more than 30 years; this is demonstrated by the 1972 global programme in response to governments’ concerns which eventually gave rise to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. Today carbon reduction is at the stage where it is becoming an integral part of business strategy, and an increasingly necessary one. Mike Kelly UK Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at KPMG, explains: “Doing nothing is not really an option given the increasing scrutiny on this area and increasingly business will have to be more transparent- which brings with it a range of accounting challenges. It will impact on business reputation, which for us has a direct impact on recruitment and retention of staff.”1
Transport to the workplace is likely to figure prominently in this new alignment, as has been seen with Cycle to Work and bus pass schemes. Nottingham City Council, for example, enables its employees to purchase bus passes through salary sacrifice. BSkyB became the world’s first carbon neutral media company, developing a climate change programme, ‘The Bigger Picture.’ Among environmentally friendly benefits for staff, it issues carbon credit cards where employees who participate in environmentally friendly acts, such as walking to work, are awarded points. These points earn them entry into a prize draw.
“People are thinking about [the environment] a lot more. When it comes to [benefits] things like attention to the environment, work–life balance, and just having a bit of fun is very important. [Staff] are looking for an organisation that will consider these needs.”3
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“…how a benefits scheme can mirror – and even assist the driving of – the cultural principles of the organisation, and how a single scheme can be tailored to fit a diverse organisation, top to bottom.”
Reward Gateway has now added a ‘Green & Ethical’ category, with brands such as Ethical Superstore and Natural Collection to its VB platform. Ethical Superstore, launched in November 2006, is an online business in the £29 billion market for ethical products and services. The combination of value, ‘greenery‘ and choice represents their in-depth experience in ethical trading, e-commerce and fulfilment. Co-founder and director Vic Morgan notes how Ethical Superstore provides the opportunity to replace a significant portion of current buying habits with ethical gifts, eco-friendly gadgets, and fair trade and organic groceries:
The UK graduate survey of 2004 showed 78% wanted to work for an environmentally responsible employer.2 Earthwatch trustee Louise Barrett describes how this affects the Employee Benefits Industry:
In VB, providers are just starting to look at channels for tie-ing in benefits strategy with wider organisational values.
The vbexcellence’07 survey aims to identify and quantify the successes and value generated by voluntary employee benefits and then go on to demonstrate how employers can build on this success. As part of the qualitative research one senior HR professional described:
Greener Discounts
Recent Developments
The CIPD with ‘People Management‘ magazine launched its ‘HR Goes Green‘ campaign in March 2007, confirming mainstream attention to this topic.
trees to be planted in response to visitors to the Asperity stand at the recent Employee Benefits exhibition.
Vbexcellence’07 survery is the UK’s biggest ever survey focused on voluntary employee benefits, carried out in conjunction with Asperity Employee Benefits and the Jelf Group. For each employer that takes part in the survey a tree is planted by the Trees for Cities charity. Asperity also enabled 107
“We now offer 2,500 ethical products for sale and you can find more fairly traded products at Ethicalsuperstore.com than in the UK’s major supermarkets.” 4
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Reward Gateway gives employees the benefit of 10% Cashback at Ethical Superstore.
catergory more thoroughly conducive to employees’ interests. 1. http://intranet.csreurope.org: Carbon in the City, March 2007
What is Ethical?
2. www.employeebenefits.co.uk: Environmental benefits, July 2007 3. www.employeebenefits.co.uk: Environmental benefits, July 2007 4. www.ethicalsuperstore.com: Information Pack
Choosing which ethical products to buy, determining what ‘really is ethical,’ can demand time and research, so Ethical Superstore do their best to share product background information. All products must meet a standard of ethical credentials set by Ethical Superstore.
5. www.naturalcollection.com: About Us
Natural Collection have been at the forefront of ethical retail since 1999, promoting fair trade and environmentally considered products. Their range includes organic cotton and fair trade clothing and accessories, items for home and garden, energy saving gadgets, organic cosmetics, eco cleaning materials and other products. “ The basic power of consumer choice can make commercially viable a growing range of top quality ecological products, even within a competitive and well established market place.” 5 Natural Collection seeks to maintain high green and ethical standards by working with environmental experts independently assessing all products against carefully considered criteria. It can be quite a challenge to identify suitable retailers in the Green & Ethical category, and easy feedback mechanisms on Reward Gateway encourages employee input. Where is “Grethical” going? We can expect considerable thought and resources to go into aligning corporate CSR goals with VB over the next few years and no doubt some ideas will be more successful and popular with employees than others. While the choice of retailers will not get universal accord, options for discount shopping in this area is a good place to start. From here Reward Gateway can quantify interest and demand through statistics & feedback and accumulate a Green & Ethical
Benefits Connection from Asperity
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Your company logo here All information correct at the time of writing and subject to change without notice. Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd, Unit 3, 11-29 Fashion Street, London. E1 6PX. Tel 020 7655 4364 www.asperity.co.uk email benefits@asperity.co.uk
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Š Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd 2007. All trademarks and registered
trademarks and logos are the respected property of their owners. Free, fully functional demo of Reward Gateway for all readers at http://vip.rewardgateway.co.uk