Don’t forget the intangible: Communicating your benefit offering

There are a myriad of plus points within any company that make it what it is, and it is important that these are communicated to employees in an easily accessible and digestible way to optimise their engagement.

Here are some examples of what companies like yours may offer, but often don’t shout about enough:

Your company mission statement – it’s important that your company’s strategy and direction is communicated and visible to everyone in the organisation. This helps your employees become more invested and allows them to see the link between what they do day-to-day with where their company is heading.

Your company values – you work hard to create a great company culture. Spelling out your company values so these are at the forefront of employee’s minds is a great way to encourage them to understand and appreciate your company culture and to demonstrate those behaviours.

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) – this can be a crucial benefit for those in need of mental wellbeing assistance, legal advice or some other form of support. However, EAPs are often forgotten when communicating reward packages. Ensuring that people are aware of what you offer and how it can be used has been shown to increase engagement and how employees view their company as a caring place to work .

Policies – if your policies provide benefits above the legal minimum then this should be considered part of the reward package. For example, providing holiday above the statutory minimum, fully paid paternity leave for 4 weeks, or fully paid maternity leave for 6 months are all significant investments. It is crucial that your people are constantly reminded of the value of these.

Car parking – it’s rarely free to park anywhere these days, so if you are providing your employees with free or subsidised parking it is a benefit of working at the company.

Discount schemes – you may be paying for your employees to have access to a discount and cashback site or you may have organised some local discounts with the nearby sandwich shop or gym, so it is important to publicise these and encourage take up.

These are just a few examples and I’m sure there are plenty of others across your company; free fruit, subsidised canteens, long service awards, discounts on your own products etc. that you provide to enrich the lives of your employees.

When designing your benefit scheme and total reward statement, it is important not to forget all these extras as they enhance your reward offering to a significant degree and in combination provide unique reasons for people to join and stay with your organisation and to recommend you to their friends and family. We have recently added two fantastic features to Zest to help you to make sure your benefit platform allows you to inform employees of everything you offer and to demonstrate the value.

1. Content pages

These flexible pages give you the freedom to be as creative as you like.

Using our simple editor, you can easily create pages on your site giving you the capability to add and keep updated aspects such as your mission statement, values, wellbeing initiatives and anything else you want to communicate to your employees about.

Plus, you can control who sees which pages using our intuitive eligibility builder.

2. Information Only benefits

These are benefits that you want to make employees aware of, such as an Employee Assistance Programme, where you have invested in a better employee experience. However, for these types of benefits, there is no need for a specific cost to be associated with them or for the employee to actively select them as part of their benefits package.

In Zest these benefits are simple to configure and are displayed on the Total Reward Statement in a separate section to make your employees aware of the benfit and to highlight the investment you are making in their work experience and wellbeing.

There are numerous examples of information only benefits where there isn’t a clearly identifiable cost, which are often forgotten but are real reasons that employees love their organisations. For instance, providing a monthly Starbucks allowance or a high-end coffee machine can mean so much more to many employees than simply providing free tea and coffee from a kettle.

At the core of what Zest delivers is to communicate a benefit scheme and to allow employees to select and tailor their benefits to their own requirements. But beyond this, Zest has the tools to provide a holistic picture of why your company is a fantastic place to work. So, when designing your scheme, think about those extras that make you stand out. Whether you already use Zest or not, we will be delighted to talk to you to explain how Zest can help you manage your benefits and get your message across.