A desk with printouts of charts and a laptop on it

Case Study

James Cowper Kreston

Working with clients since 1922
Passionate about enabling their clients to maximise their potential
Staff throughout the Thames Valley, London and South of England

Introduction

From onboarding to stories of success, James Cowper Kreston’s HR Director, Richard Dickson, joined us in our Leatherhead office to talk about their relationship with Zest.

Want to know more about James Cowper Kreston and what Richard gets up to outside the office? Our resident chat show host Pete Blyth-Tancock hosted the latest Zest Sessions episode which you can watch here.

James Cowper Kreston case study

Why were you looking for a new benefits provider and platform?

That’s an interesting question because we weren’t as such.

We were using the platform via another supplier who then took the decision to move away from the benefit arena. It made sense for us to continue using the same platform and that’s when we established that it was Zest that we had been using.

What was the onboarding process like and how long did it take?

It was slick! I think it helped that we were already using the platform. We were introduced to account managers, but in terms of data it was already in there. It was a very slick and easy process for us.

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

Very much so, and I come back to that phrase of user experience.

It’s a very easy to use platform, and it allows us to put a lot of information in there for employees to understand a bit more detail about the benefits they’ve got and may want to choose.

Can you share specific examples of benefits that have seen increased participation amongst employees?

I’d have to say our Holiday Buy and Sell, but predominantly buy, we’ve seen that increase year on year.

Can you share any stats on engagement, benefits uptake, retention before and after implementing Zest’s platform?

From the conversations and the traffic that we get into the HR team, it very much demonstrates that staff are engaged with the platform, are interested in the information that is in there and use it.

'It’s a very easy to use platform, and it allows us to put a lot of information in there for employees to understand a bit more detail about the benefits they’ve got, and may want to choose.'

HR Director /
James Cowper Kreston

What sort of feedback are you getting from employees regarding your benefits platform?

Easy. Simple. Informative!

For us it’s not necessarily something where employees are logging in on a regular basis. It tends to be an annual ‘have a look, see what my benefits package needs to look like’, but nevertheless, we get very little traffic to suggest that they have difficulty accessing.

What do you think of your relationship with Zest?

Excellent! The team are fantastic. Communications are regular and succinct. We’ve had a great experience.

Were there any specific customisation or integration requirements for the platform to align with your company’s needs?

Not really. The main thing for us was the level of detail we can get on the site. We wanted that in two layers, a brief synopsis of the benefit itself, but if staff wanted to find out a little bit more information they could, and that was kept in the platform as well.

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?

I would have to go back to our Holiday Buy and the ease of use there is within the Zest platform.

Our demographic is such that it is such a popular benefit, and a needed benefit, to allow individuals to get that work/life balance, particularly when they’re balancing work, life and study.

Would you recommend working with Zest Technology? If so, why?

Yes I would, on two different fronts. Firstly, the platform itself and the user experience it provides is very easy. It can hold a lot of information.

Secondly the people. Our relationships with the people here at Zest have been great.

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