Benefex re-launched its own flexible benefits offering to staff and used social media as a key way to promote it and encourage take up.
As a benefits consultant, the organisation is well versed in building engagement, but this was its first foray into using social media to promote engagement. As head of communication Simon Andrew explains, the firm has a lot of Generation Y employees, and so social media needed to be an important part of its strategy.
“We wanted to use a format and platform they are likely to engage with. We used a private Facebook group and Twitter account to appeal mainly to the Gen Ys and predominantly the helpdesk population. We also encouraged feedback through social media and we found this appealed to all age groups,” he says.
“The most frequent objection to using social media was that employees thought work would have access to their Facebook profiles and see inappropriate pictures and comments. When they realised this wasn’t the case, they were keen to join.”
The firm saw a strong take-up of benefits, and although Andrew admits he can’t hold the social media approach solely responsible for the increase, the interactions these channels produced is being regarded as evidence to their success. Overall, 100% of employees logged on to the portal, 98.5% submitted a benefits package and 86.6% have used voluntary benefits.
“We will be using the existing social media channels for our AE campaign and re-branding to match the campaign,” Andrew concludes.
“We’ve been conducting a pension survey so we’ll be releasing snippets of information, such as take-up rates, via the Facebook group and Twitter account to entice members of the group to think about their own pensions.”
