Feeling the benefit at Kent County Council

It may well be the ‘Garden of England’ but it is also home to the largest County Council in England; one that is responsible for the public services and welfare of over 1.4 million residents.  As such, Kent County Council (KCC) employs a wide and diverse workforce of approximately 44,000 employees whose jobs vary enormously; not only in terms of their roles and skill sets, but also geographically across more than 850 locations.

This size and diversity has understandably created an obvious challenge for the Council in providing and communicating a benefits package to its employees. However, the Council's Reward team, led by KCC’s Reward Manager, Colin Miller, has made it a key objective to deliver a programme that is appreciated by all employees and has, therefore, invested significant time and effort in developing KCC’s approach to reward.  

A significant part of this is to generate opportunities without impacting the tax payer.  This is done by using the size of the authority to capitalise on buying power and establishing ways where employees can receive more from spending their own money.

Integrating Benefits

An important factor in KCC's benefits strategy has been to take a broad approach by including all non-financial and financial elements within the wider employment offering.

In October 2007, the Council replaced its previous voluntary benefits scheme - which consisted of approximately 100 employee discounts - with a bespoke plan provided by Asperity Employee Benefits, called KentRewards. The new scheme not only has a much wider range of employee discounts (over 1500 at launch and now nearing 3000) but also enables the Council to integrate other elements of its benefits strategy - such as salary sacrifice programmes and also employee focused policies including the ability to buy/sell annual leave and work flexibly - consolidating all of this into a 'one-stop-shop' for employees.

“Kent Rewards enables the Council to achieve the underlying aims of its wider benefits strategy,” explained KCC’s Colin Miller. “We want to be inclusive by providing something for everyone and to be exclusive by offering a tailor-made package unique to Kent County Council that offers flexibility, relevance and choice for our hugely diverse employee base.”

Total Reward

The provision of a voluntary benefits programme has been enhanced by the introduction of a unique interactive communication tool, Reward Viewer, developed by Asperity. The tool provides information about the wider benefits offering and enables individual employees to summarise both tangible and intangible benefits on a personal total reward statement. It encompasses reward and recognition, pensions, Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs), tax efficient benefits, health cover options, allowances and employee relations policies. Integrated feedback mechanisms within Reward Viewer produce management information and bespoke survey results enabling employee opinion to act as a powerful driver for developing the benefits strategy.

Reward Viewer is unique in engaging staff with the rewards and benefits on offer, by displaying further information based only on the responses from users. For example, when an employee is asked whether they pay for Childcare such as a nanny, childminder, nursery, after school club or holiday clubs, if the user responds "Yes" an additional information box is created which includes details about the Childcare Voucher scheme, its advantages and how to apply. This means that throughout the Reward Viewer, the user is being educated in a non intrusive manner on rewards and benefits that really apply to them. By taking part in the Reward Viewer, the user is given a completely individualised demonstration on how the Kent Rewards package can be of maximum benefit to them.

Furthermore, Reward Viewer puts the onus on the employee to enter personal data, thereby avoiding complex IT-interfacing issues and removing the potential for errors and subsequent lack of confidence in the system. Set-up and administrative costs are minimised because employees enter their own data and all that is needed for an employee to access the system is information which is provided on their payslip.

“With Kent Rewards and Reward Viewer,” commented Miller, “we’ve brought together a number of provisions and effectively unified all of our benefits within a total reward framework. Furthermore, this interactive, online approach to total reward communicates the depth and breadth of the wider employment package, takes into account personal circumstances, invites individuals to put their own value on the employment package and uses the results to drive the future direction of the reward strategy.”

The strategy is underpinned by an innovative communications approach with digital video footage, web-based case studies and face-to-face road shows promoting key messages and benefits to users.

Evaluating Effectiveness

This total reward framework is a keystone of the KCC approach to differentiate itself from other employers in the region; to be seen as an ‘employer of choice’ in the strongest possible position to attract, retain and motivate staff.  By communicating the value of the overall employment package - especially the non-financial elements of it - the Council aims to help its employees understand, use and engage with its unique employment benefit package.

Reward Viewer also enables KCC to analyse feedback from employees who use a simple star rating system to place a value on the wide range of benefits listed; something that KCC finds especially useful for analysing the less quantifiable aspects such as flexible working, carer’s leave and training and development. This results in a personalised Total Reward Statement that can be printed and retained for future reference and, of course, this inherent flexibility enables KCC to develop its reward strategy on a continuous basis.

Record Engagement Levels

“The implementation of our total reward strategy has been an outstanding success,” said Colin Miller, “and has accelerated integration between the various elements of the Council’s reward offering. For example, our partner organisations, such as Prudential, the Consumer Financial Education Body and Asperity, have an extremely close working relationship and all of their services are seen as part of the total employment package.”

In the latest employee survey conducted by KCC, engagement levels stood at 82%. 65% stated that they are highly satisfied or very satisfied with their total benefits package and 73% regarded KCC as a good employer in relation to the general terms and conditions of employment.

Over 24,000 employees have registered on Kent Rewards so far, and use the scheme to spend their money more wisely on everyday purchases.  This covers a wide range of items such as groceries, petrol, gifts and utility services through a combination of discounts, vouchers and Cashback offers. Over £11million has been spent through the site since launch (£9m in the last year alone), indicating a huge and increasing level of regular usage.

Of the initial pilot group of 2000 employees that used Reward Viewer, 66% of the respondees said they found KCC’s approach to reward valuable. 93% found Reward Viewer easy to use.  

The success of the Council’s reward strategy has been well documented and the KCC reward and HR team has won a significant number of industry awards.

“Of course it’s great to have our work recognised and to win awards,” concluded KCC’s Colin Miller. “However, of far more importance to the team is the fact that the success of our reward strategy is measured through the uptake and usage by our employees. In this respect, it has been a huge success.”