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HOW TO NET THE NET THE BEST BEST rewards
By Neil Archibald
Reward. An area of expertise often taken for granted but a specialism within the people management field with its various strands from managing the traditional compensation components through to the design of flexible benefits packages.
One aspect though that might not immediately come to mind as a pillar of this particular team’s activities is that of influencing employee wellbeing which is often seen as something that just happens as a result of other things. However, research carried out earlier this year by an Edinburgh-based company reports that 90% of employers surveyed have a dedicated person looking after wellbeing.
Love Your Employees (LYE), billed as the UK’s 1st employee benefit and wellbeing marketplace, was set up at the end of 2020 by two schoolfriends who have worked together for the last 14 years. Elliott Smith, an ex-professional footballer and Neil Struthers developed and brought to market the online platform providing access to a suite of tools and products to help employers and their staff gain the maximum benefit from their employment contract and to see what other, relevant offerings are available. Struthers is very clear about the size of an employer not being a barrier to the provision of a wide range of benefits. He said: “With advances in technology and products falling in price due to a wider variety of providers, employers are able to access a wider range of employee benefits (EBs) than ever before.” Choice and price can help define what staff have in terms of EBs but an important aspect often forgotten is that employers need to be in control of what they offer to
staff although Smith is of the opinion that this is often not the case. He comments: “Employers don’t know what they don’t know. Unless they regularly query the products making up their EB portfolio, they don’t know if the costs involved can be put to better use elsewhere or indeed whether what is provided is hitting the mark with their staff.” He cites the reasons for this being anything from the demographics of a workforce changing and with it what they value as part of their benefits portfolio to the fact that growing swathes of the workforce want instant rewards such as shopping or holiday vouchers rather than life assurance protection, for example. It’s in this area that the research carried out by LYE is used to maximum effect to not only influence their product and service offerings to the marketplace but which also affects employers in terms of them needing to be constantly aware of the need to review their EB offering given prevailing and future demands. For example, the research undertaken threw up the fact that nearly 60% of employers had seen an increase in mental health issues due to COVID and nearly 50% of respondents said that maintaining good employee wellbeing and identifying and supporting mental health issues was vital. Struthers explains in relation to the outcome of LYE’s research: “Organisations can provide an array of seemingly great benefits but without a wellbeing aspect attached to or underpinning them, they don’t mean anything.” It is perhaps not clear to the casual observer or untrained eye that employee wellbeing stretches from physical to mental and from financial and career to social wellbeing. This is where the dissection of what is on offer in terms of rewarding staff and how it can or should affect wellbeing across the various aspects mentioned, is interesting. Financial wellbeing, for example, is an area where employers have had to align their EB offerings to what their employees demand or indeed to what is legislatively driven. For example, pension regulations have changed dramatically over recent years to allow more flexibility for workers and auto-enrolment has meant a lot more people are now in pension schemes who weren’t previously. Reflecting on what this means in a practical sense in the workplace, Smith said: “There is more need now than ever for increased financial education ranging from how to manage and access pension entitlements to providing generalist financial advice involving everything from mortgage to debt advice. This requirement is only going to grow with evolving and changing demands from workforces who want more than a salary slip from their paymaster while there is also talk at government level that this may become a legal requirement for employers to provide in the future.” To help employers reach this holy grail, LYE are launching a new online initiative which puts employers and employees in touch with third-party providers who can supply tailored workshops and guidance. Smith explains: “We have created a service called Inform to make it easier for employers to provide access to workplace education for their employees. Through this platform, our partners will deliver a programme of workshops on a whole range of topics from financial education to mental health support.” While the Scottishbased entrepreneurs kick about some innovative ideas and solutions for UK-wide employers to take advantage of, the powers that be involved in bigger games are also on the ball with their reward ideas and strategies. Shakheel Gooroochurn, currently leading on reward for beIN Media Group, the broadcaster of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, sees employee wellbeing as always having been part of a successful Shakheel reward strategy affecting the
Gooroochurn approach adopted and the benefits offered. He is strongly of the opinion that this type of ‘employee value proposition’, as he calls it, is even more vital in the current climate. He said: “Refocusing communications referring to the wellbeing elements of benefit programmes has become crucial in times of declining physical, mental and financial wellbeing which we have seen across the globe of late.” Such activities can range from reminding people that virtual consultations are available as part of private medical cover, pointing them in the direction of the EAP provider to help with mental health issues or reinforcing issues around career wellbeing such as identifying training available or working on how employee engagement scores can be improved. Struthers sounds the final whistle by suggesting that for all the work that may go into making the rewards on offer slicker and more applicable to the employee base, it’s important to ensure the work done is not seen as a gimmick in the context of aiding and abetting the wellbeing agenda. He concluded: “Wellbeing as an outcome is the result of lots of tangible processes and supporting staff are these tangible processes. In order to achieve effective employee wellbeing, an awareness of how you are going to get there is vital.” The penalties for not following such sound advice could be far-reaching and intangible.
