benefitsconnection Insight, strategy and best practice in employee benefits from Asperity Issue 8 March 2010
What does
'SUCCESS' look
like in employee benefits?
• Six ingredients for a successful Voluntary Benefits scheme
• Why are so many parents still missing out on £1,000 a year?
Welcome
Contents
02. Defining what ‘success’ looks like in any sphere isn’t easy, at least in part because success looks different to different people, and varies with circumstances and experience. Employee benefits is no exception. The same level of engagement with an employee benefits scheme will be considered a clear success in one organisation, routine in another, possibly disappointing in a third.
Editorial
03.
Widget-based customisation - what’s that exactly?
04.
Why are so many parents still missing out on £1,000 a year?
06.
Getting the most out of employee discounts
So it is useful for those responsible for reward to consider what makes a benefits portfolio ‘successful’ for their employees at a given time. This might be simply a widespread perception amongst the workforce that the employer is ‘doing something’, that more is available in exchange for labour than the straightforward wage. It may well take an extended period for this workforce to engage actively with benefits on offer, but the employer has success because the psychological contract is just a little deeper than it would be without the non-financial benefits. For other organisations, success is nothing less than a clear majority of employees actively engaging with a wide spectrum of benefits.
08.
Succeeding with Total Reward
How to get to the holy grail of benefits success? Again, it will look different in different organisations but a little bit of magic, consistent communication, relevant products and ease of access are universal themes.
09.
Available generally or generally available?
10.
Six ingredients for a successful Voluntary Benefits scheme
Glenn Elliott MD, Asperity Employee Benefits glenn@asperity.co.uk
07.
Voluntary benefits: they're not for senior staff, are they?
Visit www.asperity.co.uk for more information, exclusive access to our employer’s VIP website and to request our new Employer’s Information Pack. All information correct at the time of writing and subject to change without notice. Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd, 90 Westbourne Grove, London, W2 5RT. Tel 020 7229 0349 www.asperity.co.uk email: benefits@asperity.co.uk © Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd 2010.
02 Free, fully functional demo of Reward Gateway for all readers at www.asperity.co.uk
Widget-based customisation - what’s that exactly? It's like each employee having their own discounts website. Asperity’s Head of Development, Kishan Hickman, talks to Leanne Broadbent. First we personalised our gadgets, so now it’s no wonder that the technology has developed to enable us to personalise favourite webpages. This ‘widget style’ functionality was introduced in October 09 to the employee discount market on Asperity’s Reward Gateway. It allows employees to set favourites, manipulate the layout of their screen, turn features on or off and customise the site for maximum impact. Kishan Hickman, Head of Development at Asperity, explains more.
How market leading is it?
First things first, is ‘widget’ the technical term?
"The response has been great and it is obvious that this capability is something that our employee members want and are using. Our widgets really do seem to be creating a positive experience for the users of Reward Gateway. Client employers also value having a benefits website that is leading its field."
"Not exactly! It’s a term used in the web development industry and has caught on. We’ve now adopted it as the term to describe our customisation feature in the absence of anything else although we’d welcome suggestions."
Why has Asperity introduced the 'widget' format? "We are always looking at ways we can improve our product to ensure that users are extracting the maximum benefit and enjoy using our sites; the widget format was a natural progression for us. It allows employees to see the offers that are particularly relevant to them at various times of the year, as well as remove categories they have no interest in."
How advanced is this capability? "The ability to customise a web page has been around for a while (lots of users will know it from using the BBC website) but is more usually associated with large organisations. It certainly hasn’t evolved yet to become the norm."
“
we are thinking about Easter holidays at the moment so I’ve put the Travel section to the top as I want to keep an eye on the offers and discounts available.”
"We are proud to say that Asperity is again leading the employee benefits industry and we are the only provider in the industry to offer this capability."
What has been the response from clients and users?
As part of the development process, Kishan’s team asked regular Reward Gateway users to feedback on the widget functionality. This member’s experience was representative of the enthusiasm for the new format: “I was amazed at how easy and straightforward it was to customise the homepage. With Christmas just gone, the last thing I wanted to look at was the ‘Children & Toys’ category so this was quickly minimised and dragged to the bottom of the page. I also don’t want to be tempted by those fabulous ‘Fashion’ offers so I moved that down the page too (but still open just in case!). However, we are thinking about Easter holidays at the moment so I’ve put the Travel section to the top as I want to keep an eye on the offers and discounts available. For half-term, I maximised the ‘Entertainment & Days Out’ section too. Finally, with several male birthdays in the next couple of months, I clicked on the ‘Customise Home Page’ button and put the ‘Gift’ category on my homepage. An added plus was I discovered a whole host of unusual shops and websites that look as though they’ll stock something for those ‘difficult to buy for’ men in my family!” These positive responses make it easy to see where the value of widgets lies. "Tailoring a site allows the user to keep a closer eye on the offers and promotions they’re interested in at a particular time.", Kishan explains. "This in turn helps to drive employee satisfaction and increases user engagement with a scheme. It’s good news for the employer too; the more employees use a discount scheme, the greater the actual value of the employee benefit."
Benefits Connection from Asperity
03
Why are so many parents still missing out on £1,000 a year? A look at what employers can do to encourage more parents to use childcare vouchers. Alan Voyle, Marketing Strategist. Last week I heard that a friend of a friend was recently paid £2,000 in return for being infected with Swine Flu. As part of a research group, a small sample of people were paid to contract the virus then spend a week in a London clinic for tests and observations. All those party to this conversation said they wouldn’t have minded the chance for a quick £2,000 saying it would be worth it for a week’s inconvenience. So on the same day I was interested to read that a significant number of parents are foregoing substantial annual savings, in some cases as much as £2,3901 per year, either because the perceived hassle of signing up for childcare vouchers is too great, or a belief that the available saving is too low2. Why are so many willing to let such a saving slip by? Clearly, many parents who are taking advantage of this tax efficient way of paying for childcare value it highly. Late last year when the government unveiled plans to scrap the CCV scheme, there was such significant backlash from parents and MPs that the government had to rethink its plans. With around 33,000 employers offering the scheme and 340,000 parents taking advantage of the savings, the strong feeling was hardly surprising. So with significant savings on employer’s NI, what can employers do to increase uptake among parents who haven’t yet joined up? Information typically tends to be made available at scheme launch and then annually as part of a ‘window’ to join up. There is a really good argument for talking to parents individually at key times - perhaps when a parent goes on, or returns from, maternity, paternity or parental leave. Direct contact with eligible employees at the appropriate point with tailored information looks time consuming or resource intensive but could unlock the key barrier to take-up.
One issue is how, and perhaps crucially when, information is made available. One family initially missed out on the tax savings because it wasn’t made clear by the employer (or in turn their CCV provider) that CCVs could be used for pre-school childcare. They thought only full-time nursery daycare qualified and wrongly assumed therefore that we weren’t eligible for CCVs. They fortunately rectified this with some further digging around for our second child, and even on just 7 hours pre-school childcare a week, they benefited from tax savings sufficient to pay for football and swimming lessons.
"
Direct contact with eligible employees at the appropriate point with tailored information looks time consuming or resource intensive but could unlock the key barrier to take-up."
At a recent play-group, I conducted a straw poll on CCV knowledge. While most parents there knew about CCVs (with most working mums - less dads - already making use of them) the majority did not realise that they could be spent on pre-school places or holiday clubs or after-school schemes for school age children. Instead most wrongly assumed, like we had, that they were purely for use at full-time nurseries up to age 5. Many were surprised to find that they had been missing out. I was also surprised to see that out of those already making use of CCVs, only one family I spoke to knew how much they were saving each year. Esther, who works for a local authority, said when asked how much her family had saved, “I have no idea - I never worked it out and my provider never informed me”. Others felt that a personal statement or savings calculator of some form would be useful and would encourage them to look at the savings available or recommend the scheme to colleagues.
04 Free, fully functional demo of Reward Gateway for all readers at www.asperity.co.uk
The level of service and flexibility offered by the employer or CCV provider can also prove a hindrance. “The decision and process to sign up was easy,” says Simon who works for a major UK IT consultancy. “However, deciding on the amount to contribute was more difficult...because of restrictions in my employer’s flexible rewards scheme...once a contribution is started it must run for the full year”. There can also be process issues that frustrate scheme users: “I didn’t always find it easy to contact my CCV provider,” said Esther, “often the phone would just ring out for ages or they’d be shut when I needed to call". Some companies are clearly getting it right, and when that happens your employees will help promote the scheme themselves. Mandy, a regional manager at a major not-for-profit organisation, said that both she and her partner were making full use of the savings available: “My employer launched the scheme about 2 years ago and were proactive at the time of launch, featuring articles in our staff magazine and cascading to all staff. They sent me information when I was on maternity leave. I know a number of colleagues use the scheme and I have certainly recommended it to others. Pretty much everyone I know at work who has kids is using the scheme. My partner’s company, however, only promoted the scheme at the launch of their corporate benefits package and now just through their intranet. He has joined because he can see from me how useful it is, but I’m not sure he’d have got round to it without that”. When asked if the decision had been difficult or the process a hassle Mandy said “it was a bit of a no-brainer really and pretty easy to sign up to once we put aside the time to do it. No more complicated or time consuming than taking out another financial product or buying a mobile phone.”
klist: g “Top 10” Chec in w llo fo e th er Consid u a complete
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As an employer, take some time to audit your CCV scheme and consider what you can do to increase uptake.
1 Based on higher rate tax payer where both parents are using their full entitlement. Savings for basic rate taxpayers are £962 per parent per year. 2 Asperity Employee Benefits research
Benefits Connection from Asperity
05
Getting the most out of employee discounts Employees need our help to maximise savings. By Helen Craik, Operations Director at Asperity Employee Benefits. The uncertain state of the economy means that both employers and employees are feeling the pinch and everyone is considering ways to maximise their budgets. If you have invested in your employee benefits programme and have included employee discounts in your package, then now is a good time to consider how you can help your employees get the most from your benefit scheme. Not only will your employees reap financial rewards, but so will you as they fully appreciate the value of their benefit package. An employee discount scheme shouldn’t be about encouraging your employees to spend more or change their shopping habits; primarily it should be about delivering great savings and rewards on those purchases that they are making anyway. For this to be possible you need to be sure that your discount scheme offers a wide range of offers across a spectrum of categories. The offers need to be regularly updated with a range of exciting promotions and deals. And employees need to know about the scheme and be constantly reminded about what's available. Headline discounts are obviously attractive and help to gain interest but often is can be the accumulation of everyday regular discounts, that make a really big difference. So look at ways you can help demonstrate where the benefit lies. Relevant savings illustrations and colleague testimonials can be great tools. Some discount providers are even including personalised ‘Reward Statements’ as an integral part of their service and this is proving to be really valuable. George Farrow, Service Delivery Director at Asperity Employee Benefits said, “ We became aware that members just weren’t keeping a tally of how much the discount platform was saving them and that is why we introduced the personalised Reward Statement to the user’ s home page. It shows just how much the user has earned in their Cashback account and the savings on their voucher purchases. People are really amazed at how quickly and by how much the savings add up.” Your communication strategy needs to influence the purchasing process. Typically the purchasing process has been to shop on the high street or look online for the best deals and offers, but what the successful players are doing is ensuring that their discount scheme becomes part of that process. Employees purchasing discounted vouchers or reloadable cards before hitting the high street, or making the most of online discounts combined with ‘Cashback’, get the most return. Employers help achieve this by implementing a communication campaign that is regular and
targeted and makes use of existing internal communication channels. The ultimate aim should be to achieve employee tailored communications. Asperity are leading the field in this area too and have already introduced sophisticated email marketing techniques where emails are tailored to the preferences and shopping habits of the recipient. Cross promotion can also help to raise awareness. When your employee notifies you that they are pregnant or register for paternity leave, this is a good time to remind them about your discount scheme. With research suggesting that the average family spends £1,560 before the baby is born and a staggering £165,000 raising a child to 21, then highlighting the potential discounts available is sure to be of interest. If you have an integrated voluntary benefit package that includes Childcare Vouchers (CCV) for example, then make sure your provider is also capitalising on the opportunity to highlight the discounts that may be of interest to an employee registering for CCVs. Many providers offer additional ‘login’ facilities for employee family members but often this facility is not being used. It is possible that a different famous member is responsible for reviewing all the home insurance and utility contracts at renewal, or completing the monthly food shop or undertaking the Christmas shopping - so make sure that all those that can benefit from your scheme are doing so. If you have a discount offering which is exciting and engaging with no hidden costs or surprises, supported by regular communication campaigns and updated offers, then your employees will promote the scheme themselves; but the scheme and communications have to be right in the first place. Is yours?
"
An employee discount scheme is primarily about delivering great savings and rewards on those purchases that they are making anyway"
06 Free, fully functional demo of Reward Gateway for all readers at www.asperity.co.uk
Voluntary benefits: they’re not for senior staff, are they? Debunking the myth. By George Farrow, Service Delivery Director at Asperity Employee Benefits. If our sales team had a £1 for every senior member of staff who used to say “voluntary benefits are not for me", they’d be smiling. But times have changed and senior staff have embraced the merits of spending smarter on their own account as well as for their employers. Typically, senior staff tend to be the organisers in their families and take care of the big budget items like financing childcare and holidays and the boring administrative items like insurance, utilities and banking arrangements. They’re also slaves to the calendar, so are much better organised when it comes to arranging gifts for birthdays and so on. Senior staff have even become converts to shopping vouchers, previously considered as somewhat down-market but now decidedly attractive and flexible in the new reloadable card and SMS code formats.
• £250 on shopping vouchers for my groceries and fuel at Sainsbury’s • £42 Cashback on my home contents insurance via Kwik-Fit – yes that seemed strange to me too at first but then I saw Axa underwrote the policy • £70 Cashback on buildings insurance with Aviva • £110 Cashback on insuring cars with Co-Op • £100 by opening an account with Alliance & Leicester • £100 Cashback on dual fuel with Scottish Power
We talked to Rodney McKay, who works in the Executive Office of a financial organisation. “When my employer announced the launch of our new benefits scheme, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. The first thing I did was to use the search facility to check whether Reward Gateway covered the retailers I used. I was amazed with the range. The service enabled me to continue with my existing shopping habits and not change a thing. So I erased my favourite stores from my web browser and inserted them on my benefits homepage – I really love the way you can personalise that page so that it just contains the stuff you want to see. Then I added a note on my calendar to check Reward Gateway first for all my insurance, utilities (broadband, power) renewals and birthdays. I’ve only been registered six months but in that time I’ve saved:
• £140 on a family activity holiday in the Italian Lakes, not to mention • a packet on luxury Christmas gifts at Tordoffs Now you’re thinking, do I do anything else other than spend time on Reward Gateway? Well the thing is, I would have been doing these things anyway. The difference is that I’m getting paid to do it with this Cashback thing they do and it’s not taking me any longer to complete the transactions. Best of all the childcare voucher service is a major blessing. The Helpdesk is open seven days a week, so I can talk to people about changing details such as carers at the weekend, rather than trying to fit it into the working week. And as a higher rate taxpayer, I’ve already saved in excess of £500. OK, I earn a decent wage. But the way I look at it is this. If someone is sticking over £1,000 gratis on my desk and says "take it” then I’m up for it.“
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Benefits Connection from Asperity
07
Succeeding with Total Reward Seeing is believing in employee rewards. By Catherine Graham, Client Marketing Manager at Thomsons Online Benefits. Total Reward has enormous potential to improve business performance through an engaged workforce, and it is being harnessed by many UK companies. Recent research from both Thomsons and the CIPD1 show a third of all UK companies have adopted this approach, and many think it is the future for meeting the motivational and retention needs of their companies with very impressive ROIs. Total Reward encompasses pay and benefits, working environment and career and personal development, giving a value to both financial and non-financial elements of working life. In the current economic climate, where companies are being asked to do more with less, total reward as a business strategy is of particular relevance. Non-financial elements such as learning, personal development and work environment have a huge influence over company culture, and are therefore a powerful management tool. When employees understand and appreciate the full value of their reward package it helps to improve retention, creates a competitive cultural brand and counterbalances pay or bonus freezes. As employees demand different returns from work, it certainly helps to be able to see the bigger picture.
The aim is to be balanced, ensuring that the company’s interests are catered for as well as inspiring more positive employee commitment. If implemented correctly, the benefits should include easier recruitment and better-quality of staff, reduced wastage from staff turnover, better business performance and an enhanced reputation of your company as an employer of choice. And to see if you’ve achieved success with total reward, consider tangible methods of measurement such as ‘before and after’ employee surveys and monitoring login and benefit selection statistics.
"
As employees demand different returns from work, it certainly helps to be able to see the bigger picture".
So what does successful total reward look like? • Choose which benefits appear on your total reward statements wisely, only selecting benefits that have true value to your employees. • Communicate these in an effective way, in line with your company or reward brand and values. •
Make sure that if segmented, you only communicate rewards which an individual is entitled to.
CIPD Annual Survey Report 2009 – Reward Management Thomsons Online Benefits – Employee Reward Watch 2009
1
08 Free, fully functional demo of Reward Gateway for all readers at www.asperity.co.uk
Available generally or generally available? Choosing the right benefits for your portfolio. By Sarah Millward , Project & Compliance Manager at Asperity Employee Benefits. HMRC’s recent “reclarification” of treatment of tax relief on Cycle to Work (CtW) provides a relevant insight into benefits selection. HMRC said make benefits available generally to all and don’t exclude groups such as under 18s and those on National Minimum Wage. Until December, CtW was generally available but excluded these groups. When considering your provision, whether with tax relief in mind or not, it’s not a bad idea to select benefits which are not only made generally available but are likely to be generally taken up. This will ensure you achieve your engagement aspirations. Voluntary benefits (VB) shopping discounts are a must precisely because they are accessible to all. So whether your employee is on minimum wage or a director, a B&Q discount will be as much appreciated for household DIY as for a sit-down lawn-mower. The level of engagement and the discount are the same. It’s just a question of degree on the value of spend. Avoid supplier funded VB providers. Their deal portfolio will be smaller (fewer retailers will work with them) and their discount levels are diluted by their need to fund themselves.
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Benefits work best when there really is something for everyone."
A word of warning: make sure you’re provider is fully compliant. Most stuck their heads in the sand when HMRC reclarified the rules. Childcare costs are a significant expense for many parents, so when the Government is offering over £900 p.a. tax relief on childcare vouchers (CCV) it makes sense to ensure your employees can take it. And it doesn’t cost you anything either. In fact, some organisations use the savings in secondary National Insurance to fund their entire benefits schemes. Choose an integrated provider of shopping discounts and CCV – that way you’ll get much higher take-up because those employees will already be used to making savings on child-related products such as toys and clothing. You’ll also benefit if your provider’s helpdesk opens everyday, since most employees deal with childcare administration at weekends. Finally, you’ll want to consider medical cashplans. It is often not easy to find a National Health dentist. It makes sense to enable your employees to access routine healthcare and basic private cover if they wish. Ideally, you’ll need a scheme covering routine dental, optical and scans on a cost neutral basis, with an option for up to 60 minor operations to be dealt with privately if NHS care is not available within weeks. Care is not as immediate or extensive as Private Medical Insurance, but it covers the basics and it’s dramatically cheaper for your employees.
As with shopping discounts, vouchers are a great leveler. Reloadable card formats now make vouchers universally appealing and whether purchases are ad hoc, or via standing order, there is no longer any need to procure these through the more cumbersome flexible benefits format. Cycle to Work is a must. Take-up levels are not exciting, but most employees like to know it’s there, particularly when they make resolutions to get fitter. There are a raft of charity bike rides and these often act as a catalyst for employees considering cycling to work. The scheme is self-funding from secondary National Insurance savings and you’re supporting the environment and health and well-being agenda.
Benefits Connection from Asperity
09
Six ingredients for a successful Voluntary Benefits scheme By Leanne Broadbent, Freelance Journalist. Like any endeavour, there is no single magic formula for guaranteeing successful voluntary benefits schemes. But our most dynamic schemes are characterised by HR teams focussing on one or two key enablers and pursuing them relentlessly. We highlight here some very vibrant schemes in a diverse cross-section of clients.
1. Visible senior commitment to building benefitsorientated communities One HR Director recorded a video introducing staff to the scheme, giving a personal tour and lending his authority to the programme. This video received 31,000 views in six weeks. This employer's Rewards Community hosts video interviews where staff share savings tips winning an incentive for each story published. And the Twitter Group publicises new benefits in line with the corporate goal of making new technologies core to the business.
2. Engaging your Account Manager
3. Content, content, content.
Account managers should live and breathe the reward service seven days a week. Between them, they should know everything there is to know about what works and what doesn’t in voluntary benefits. As avid personal users of the scheme themselves, it would pain them to think that employees might be missing out on easily achievable savings potentially running up to £1,000 per annum per employee.
You can take employees to a benefits scheme but you can't make them use it unless the offers are relevant and real. All your good work as an employer in raising awareness of discounts will come to grief if your employees are disappointed when they get there. You need style and substance, communications and content, breadth and depth of offers. The pay off is the very significant return on your investment.
We recognise that perhaps some employers see the provision of employee benefits as just ticking another “to do” list box. Get the project implemented and then move onto something else. But for those HR Managers that really want to push benefits boundaries, account managers can provide much invaluable support.
10 Free, fully functional demo of Reward Gateway for all readers at www.asperity.co.uk
4. Understanding and enabling people power A Total Reward Statement (TRS) is not just a total remuneration statement. A savvy employer used TRS to consolidate the entirety of non-financial benefits available to employees and this contributes significantly to positive employee perception of the value of their employment contract. Better still, employees are entirely responsible for entering their data (utilising a range of sophisticated prompts) ensuring greater accuracy and keeping costs down. Some employees have reservations about communication from providers, and you might not be alone in thinking benefits related emails might not be desirable. We agree that email of the junk variety has a deservedly bad press and that’s why we refer to our email communication as service and offer updates. Let’s face it, the employer has endorsed the service and employees have registered for it, so with 1800 offers available, it’s natural that employees want to keep abreast of latest developments. One of the country's largest employers conducted its own survey on the issue and found 70% of employees saw updates as integral to the service. Policy changed. Engagement rocketed.
5. Deploying product champions Scheme success requires engagement at every level and particularly from line managers outside the HR department. We call them product champions and two employers in particular have recognised their value and invested time and money in getting them involved. A client with hundreds of locations, each with under 20 staff, has focused on champions to back up engagement competitions with points based schemes. These result in prizes for the area or divisional managers whose teams have achieved the highest level of participation by their direct reports. There is no doubt that, a twin track approach of motivating managers and employees has been responsible for significant improvements in engagement – in this case an astonishing 111% in three months.
6. Ensuring communications reach employees outside of Head Office A major retailer recognised that a poster on an office noticeboard is, on its own, too passive to drive engagement. Their retail till system is used by all outlet staff and through it a survey was conducted on internet use at home among retail employees who do not have internet access at work. £1 was donated to their Charitable Trust for each completed survey and there was an astonishing participation rate of 33% revealing that up to 90% of staff shopped online. In a different organisation with staff based overseas as well as in the UK, Google Analytics reports reveal that employees as far away as Uzbekistan use the reward scheme. Whilst the Reward Gateway offer portfolio is limited to the UK, Ireland and Australia, staff abroad have realised that retailers ship overseas and there are still gifts to be bought for family back home.
Benefits Connection from Asperity
11
Employee benefits for all walks of life...
At Asperity, we understand that everyone has different tastes and interests. That’s why we’ve made the latest version of our award-winning employee benefits site, Reward Gateway, completely customisable - allowing your employees to prioritise the offers they want to see the most.
So whether they’re into hiking holidays or the latest fashion trends, sportswear or just curling up in their slippers with a book, with Reward Gateway each individual can have their own personalised site tailored specifically to their needs and interests.
For more information contact us on 020 7229 0349 or visit www.asperity.co.uk