Benefits Communication : "communicate, schmoonicate – sounds easy enough but many organisations find it difficult to be really effective"

White Paper by Helen Craik, Director of HR Policy & Strategy. April 2007

Getting the message out about employee discounts

If an employer is going to invest resources in benefits over and above basic salaries, it makes sense to communicate these well to employees. In the case of some benefits – holiday and sick leave, for example – information will usually be in the employment contract and well understood by both parties. But in many other cases it is not - research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests that only 15% if employees fully appreciate the value of their overall benefits package. With companies spending between 10% and 30% of payroll on non-salary items (excluding pensions) , this is a situation that employers need to address.

Pensions, private healthcare and life assurance are high value benefits to employees, with a correspondingly high cost to employers, and can sometimes be complex messages to disseminate requiring considerable investment. But with other parts of the benefits package - voluntary benefits and employee discounts in particular - the message is more straightforward and high levels of employee recognition should be achievable: “when it comes to staff benefits, research shows that the better they are communicated, the more staff appreciate them” . A main reason these elements are not better valued is the lack of a coherent, targeted and well executed benefits communication plan.

Discount Schemes are now worth communicating

Employee discounts products, which have been out in the cold for a few years as a result of changing shopping patterns and choices, are back in a big way. A good scheme offers a massive range of discounts with both high street names and niche retailers, covering essential purchases and discretionary spending.

Employers are slowly getting back on board the discounts ship and realising that a decent portfolio of discounts, branded to their corporate or benefits scheme identity with key highlight offers aligning to an overall reward or corporate strategy, is a highly desirable, low-cost, minimum-effort benefit for all employees. And that’s good: but if the communications strategy fails – and that supposes there is a communications strategy in the first place – the potential to create goodwill, loyalty, motivation and make a positive connection with the benefits brand (and the therefore with the employer) is not maximised.

There are, of course, wider issues around corporate communication that impact on if or how employees get good information on workplace benefits. But if an employer has a benefits or discounts scheme for its employees, the scheme is considerably more valuable as a benefit and therefore as a satisfaction tool if employees use it regularly and are actively encouraged to use it by the employer.

Every time such a scheme is used there is a positive connection made with the employee and this needs to be maximised (in our own research levels of employer goodwill are raised even when a scheme is not used by some staff – the mere fact that it is there and well communicated means the employee feels a benefit and views the employer more positively.

Frequency of usage drives employer value

Frequency of scheme usage is they key driver for employer value. A scheme generating 12 uses per employee per year has more value than one generating 4; a scheme generating several uses per month has even more value. Employees won’t use a scheme that they don’t know about it and they will only use a scheme once or twice if communication isn’t persistent and consistent enough to create a habit. The offers and benefits need to be well-understood and have the credibility to become integrated as a core part of an employee’s purchasing decision-making process. Employees will use a scheme less if access to and communication about the scheme is disjointed or poorly targeted or if a lack of belief in the scheme pervades the employing organisation.

It is only recently that the new generation of discounts schemes, primarily online but with paper or phone based offers as well, have made employee discounts a strong, attractive proposition again. It’s easy to understand why staff discounts of yesteryears got little by way of comms effort from the employer – they had only a few credible discounts and were more likely to bring a firm into disrepute with its employees or elicit jaundiced laughter than enhance its image. Employers that did have a good offer or two (and now good schemes have many hundreds of discount offers) found it hard to keep these up-to-date and therefore drifted into leaving employees to do the legwork themselves to find out if and what was available by way of employee discounts.

First things first - get a scheme worth promoting

There is no point in communicating a lacklustre or outdated discounts portfolio so employers need to get a good scheme before embarking on comms. If the scheme is in need of a refresh, that has to be done first. If the employer doesn’t have a scheme, a straightforward procurement exercise will identify providers that have a great product as well as the required tools for comms support.

Employers should choose a benefits provider that has proven expertise in designing and delivering the communications process. A great deal of the work in getting the discounts message out to employees and then keeping it there is either undertaken directly by the discount provider – for example, regular email newsletters to opted-in employees – or facilitated by them, particularly at launch or revamp, with designed materials, marketing tools and collateral and most importantly a coherent strategic plan.

Apart from sourcing a provider that will shoulder the comms effort with them, employers need to ensure that the content of the scheme is more than just fit-for-purpose. A portfolio that offers predominantly days out or travel discounts may get a look-in during holiday periods but will fail to attract year-round use by employees. There needs to be an incentive to use the employer’s discount scheme for everyday, routine, got-to-buy-anyway purchases like insurance, broadband, mobiles, clothes, groceries and to have a breadth of choice within those categories. And then the fun and discretionary spend items must also be covered – books, CDs, gifts, furniture, flowers and the rest.

So first, employers, get the right scheme and then communicate it.

Employee audiences

Broadly, communications activity to employees falls into 5 groupings:

  1. Induction comms for new joiners; this is a key target audience for employers – new employees will be especially receptive to new benefits and if properly engaged at this stage will remain users of a good scheme for their career at the firm.
  2. Launch of a new or seriously revamped discount scheme
  3. Regular reminders to ensure continued use and credibility
  4. One-off comms for a particular or new discount
  5. Special communications to align and integrate the scheme with other internal activity, such as a work / life balance programme or a CSR or environmental push.

Some of the communication activity will overlap between the group

© Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd 2007

Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd is registered in England at 90 Westbourne Grove, London. W2 5RT. Registered company number 05696250. Telephone 020 7229 0349.

Asperity Employee Benefits provides the UK's largest staff discount product designed for easy integration into an employer's existing employee benefits package. The level of staff discounts available is higher than in any other employee benefits scheme in the UK. Combined with the biggest range of staff discount providers, Asperity offers employers maximum value from their investment in employee benefits. Level of employee discounts and the number of participating suppliers offering an employee discount are key factors in driving usage of a staff discount scheme. Asperity delivers market beating results on both the level of staff discount and the number of suppliers offering an employee discount, ensuring high value payback for employers.