Owain Thomas reveals how Home Group improved benefits take-up with a new platform and communication project.
Business case:
- A segmented approach meant existing benefits were not as visible or utilised as desired
- A new themed flexible benefits platform complemented the firm's identity
- Three new benefits proved popular with older benefits seeing a resurgance
- Using internal ambassadors to communicate and promote the scheme produced higher engagement
Re-launching a benefits scheme on Halloween could prove a scary prospect, but Home Group used the date to help get its message across and make an impact on staff - and it worked.
The date was a happy launching pad, but the team at the social enterprise made substantial changes to the benefits offering and how it was presented to staff.
HR business partner - policy and reward Kelly Mitchell explains that the social enterprise already had a number of benefits but they were not in a single place for colleagues to access. This meant it was not as easy for colleagues to access as hoped, resulting in low engagement with the package.
"But we believed we had a good benefits package, particularly for the sector that we work in," she says. "So part of it was to put everything in one place; another part was to add some additional benefits that were attractive to our colleagues to improve our benefits offering. And then the final part was to reduce benefits' administration from an internal perspective."
Reward community
The first step was to bring all the benefits together in one platform. Edenred was chosen to operate the scheme and a neighbourhood map design to reflect the organisation's work as a housing and care in the community provider was created on which to base the benefits.
"We liked the idea of creating an online reward community so we came up with the map idea and we called it Rewards Scene," continues Mitchell. "In Rewards Scene, you can take a trip to various locations: Benefits Boulevard includes all of our benefits; Wellbeing Walk contains all of our wellbeing related initiatives and benefits; Heroes Heights is where our recognition scheme is housed. So it was about pulling benefits and recognition and wellbeing all together under one place."
The neighbourhood community scheme continued with Fitness Flyover and Gadget Gate. And that has helped people engage with the scheme and bring it to life.
"What is really nice is that now people refer to the benefits by the street names, so people don't say technology salary sacrifice, they call it Gadget Gate. ‘Have you been to Gadget Gate?' So that's really helped people engage with the benefits on the site," Mitchell adds.
Once the technology had been settled on, Mitchell's team began reviewing the benefits on offer, whether the current package addressed the organisation's (and its employees') needs and if anything could be added to boost interest. In the end three new salary sacrifice benefits were introduced, but pre-existing ones were also given increased prominence.
"We launched a computer technology salary sacrifice scheme and obviously that had great timing in the run-up to Christmas. That's probably been our most popular benefit and we've had over 250 people take out computers through that benefit," says Mitchell.
"The other two benefits that we launched were Gourmet Society and gym discounts and they've also been popular as well."
The firm also moved to a continuously open benefits window, rather than an annual single window - a decision intended to give greater flexibility to staff. All this needed to be communicated clearly and concisely to staff, and Mitchell's team did this in a variety of creative ways.
Diverse communication
Headquartered in the north east, Home Group has 3,000 employees based around the country - from Scotland to Cornwall. And given the job roles of many staff, it was clear a more diverse approach would be needed alongside the more typical emails and posters.
"We have what we call our reward and recognition value ambassadors and they're effectively ambassadors for the benefits and reward package," explains Mitchell.
"They're colleagues and managers who work throughout the business in all different locations. One of our challenges of communication is we have got quite a lot of locations and it's difficult to really get those messages down to those colleagues. That's why we engaged with people out in the business to help us get that message out. So it wasn't just standard corporate communication, they were very engaged."
The team whole-heartedly embraced the map concept from the platform and used the value ambassadors as tour guides, giving them flags to display on their desks or walk around with which had 'Ask me about the Rewards Scene'.
They were also sent fact sheets to provide more information on the benefits when having conversations with colleagues. Perhaps the biggest impact was a more unique idea.
"We sent superhero capes, to all the value ambassadors which were branded with our Home Heroes recognition scheme logo on the back. They all wore them for a particular day, but a lot of them were very keen and wore them a little bit longer," says Mitchell.
"That was, they literally just walked around their locations and did their normal business in those and it really generated questions from colleagues; it was a really on-the-ground way of being able to communicate without a corporate message. So people were saying to them ‘What are home heroes, what's that, why have you got a superhero cape on?' And they were able to then have the conversations with those colleagues around our new scheme."
A desk drop to all staff in the organisation on launch day using the Halloween theme consisting of a little pack of sweets that had the Rewards Scene logo with a little ghost over the top that had ‘Treats without the tricks' on was another key element.
Mapping progress
And completing the map connection, a city style tour guide to Rewards Scene was also handed out.
"It basically unfolded like it was a normal map but it had a map of Rewards Scene with all of the locations on and on the back of it was a key. So for each street sign, it told you about that benefit, which again was a really fun way and it tied in our communications to our benefits platform," Mitchell adds.
The results have been quite noticeable.
Alongside the popularity of the three new benefits, there have been improvements in pre-existing benefits that were not getting engagement because they were tucked away.
"For example we offered a discount with the AA for breakdown insurance and we get quite a competitive deal, but colleagues didn't really know about it. Since the launch we've definitely seen an increase in our AA membership as a result. And we've also seen some more cycles ordered through our cycle to work scheme," she continues.
Comments and anecdotal evidence from colleagues suggest the new scheme has been well received and the annual survey results echo this, with the firm's Great Place to Work survey seeing an improved score.
"Before the new platform we had benefits through different providers and accessed in all different ways and we went from that to having a single very engaging platform with a positive communication. Obviously it is early days, we're only three months in and we will continue to embed it and focus on communication," Mitchell concludes.
