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Case Study

Aliaxis

Experts in fluid management solutions
Passionate about creating sustainable systems for water, gas and energy
120+ distribution centres
45+ countries

Introduction

With employees unsure of where to find or how to use their benefits, Aliaxis were keen to find a more user-friendly platform for colleagues to engage with.

We recently sat down with Suzie Blackburn, Talent & Reward Manager at Aliaxis, to discuss their onboarding, and how the Technology of Benefits helped to significantly increase their employee engagement rates.

Why did you choose Zest?

We wanted something that was really user friendly and simple to use. The big thing for us as well was the offering that’s provided with the app. Because we have a huge percentage of our staff (roughly 50%) that are working in the manufacturing and warehousing areas, they don’t have the luxury of sitting in front of a laptop all day, so be able to have something on their phone that they can easily access was really important.

It was a key reason for us choosing Zest. The platform is incredibly easy to navigate, it’s really engaging, and being able to put different imagery on there is helpful. It links to our branding as a company.

The layout of the Total Reward Statement is also brilliant. That was big for us, we wanted to highlight to people the investment that the company makes in them. It isn’t just their salary, which is what a lot of people always default to. We wanted to really be able to show them and demonstrate how much the company invests in its employees when it comes to aspects such as benefits.

What was the onboarding process like? How long did it take?

Once we’d worked out a little bit more about implementation and what it was, it was fantastic.

Ben (Ben Stuart – Project Consultant) was in charge of assisting us and I can’t fault him in the slightest. He was super patient and there whenever we needed him. My colleague Emma and I, it was our first time leading the project and implementation. We were completely overhauling the benefits, so not just bringing in a new system.

Ben, bless him, answered all our questions so patiently. It’s ridiculous really how helpful he was. When we were doing the handover to the next team I didn’t want Ben to go.

What they say

'When we launched with Zest at the beginning of April, our engagement went to roughly 88% of employees signing in, whether that was through the app or through their desktop.'

Suzie Blackburn /
Talent & Reward Manager

How did you find the process of launching your platform with Zest for the first time?

Once again, I have to sing Ben’s praises. He really helped guide us.

We’ve done plenty of things at our end, but there was so much help as we prepared for launch. At our end we ran roadshows around all seven of our sites in the UK. We made sure everyone could attend and had varying shifts for manufacturing. We were on site for four days, so we captured those shift patterns. It was something we had to get right internally, we had to communicate the benefit and then training on the platform.

Ben really helped support us with that. If questions came up in the roadshow that we hadn’t thought of, he showed incredible patience with us and was there to answer them. They were answered so quickly.

Launch went really, really well and we obviously had the training sessions with Loise (Louise Goodburn – Zest Training Manager) that were really helpful.

What do you think of your relationship with Zest and would you recommend them?

I’d recommend working with Zest!

The implementation process was so much smoother than I was expecting. Everything was so responsive. The minor contract issues we had were sorted straight away and I really like the fact that we had so much support on launch from the likes of Ben.

He knew everything inside out, so any niggles or issues we had, he knew how to sort them out immediately.

Could you share a specific success story or scenario where Zest platform played a crucial role in addressing a particular challenging or enhancing positive outcome?

Before we had very little engagement. With our previous platform, our people just weren’t engaged with our benefits at all, despite the fact we had some really great benefits on offer. Colleagues perhaps didn’t know what they were, or where to look for them.

When we launched with Zest at the beginning of April, our engagement went to roughly 88% of employees signing in, whether that was through the app or through their desktop. Our average take-up on taxable benefits went up to 81%.

We also had a big increase in Life Insurance beneficiaries being named. We offer 6x Life Insurance, which is an amazing benefit, but people didn’t seem to be naming their beneficiaries, which was obviously an issue. The fact that it’s so easy with Zest to pop a name in and amend your Life Insurance beneficiaries has seen those rise to 85%, an increase of 26%.

What they say

People are engaging more with the platform and also more with their Pension, logging in to amend contributions too. Zest is such a simple, user-friendly system to use.

Suzie Blackburn /
Talent & Reward Manager

Do you have any data on % increase in engagement and take-up with benefits?

As previously mentioned, the engagement with the platform with Zest alone is now at 88%. Colleagues are much happier accessing it and are far more knowledgeable about how to do so.

That 88% of people have logged on at least once, picked their benefits in the annual benefit window, know how to use their benefits. Even if they haven’t logged in since, they’ve still gone in and engaged with their offering.

We were a bit worried that the taxable benefits would struggle because people don’t want to pay more taxes. We’ve had an 8% uptake in those across the three we offer.

Do you think Zest’s technology and has it helped engage your employees?

The key impact was Zest’s APP. We have colleagues working across the operational side of the business that perhaps never got that opportunity to engage and have a look through their offering. Now it’s literally an APP at their fingertips, on their phone, where they can access it really easily. I think the partnership with Zest has 100% had a positive impact on benefits uptake.