The Challenges Facing Reward Managers

Unsettling and troubling world events continue to test employees’ resilience levels to the limit. This, in turn, keeps the pressure on employers to understand their workforce’s changing needs, in order for companies to move forward productively.

Today’s staff are increasingly seeking meaning from their jobs. So, it’s more important than ever that companies respect their employees’ values and assist them in their quest for fulfilment.

Here we’ll take a look at the key challenges facing reward managers today. We’ll see how an employee benefits platform can support them as they adapt to necessary changes that reflect the wants and needs of staff today.

Understanding today’s challenges

It’s easy to talk in general terms about a change in what people want from their employer. But while a change in expectation may be consistent across the workforce, the specifics will differ from person to person. Taking time to understand the changes in each organisation is fundamental to making progress. 

In March 2020, 46% of UK workers reported feeling ‘more prone to extreme levels of stress’ compared with the previous year. And in 2021, 71% of UK workers wanted flexible home/office working options to stay in place after the COVID-19 crisis had passed.

So, it’s hardly surprising that among today’s biggest challenges facing reward managers are both ensuring employee resilience and promoting a culture of flexibility. These challenges are:

Ensuring employee resilience

A positive step forward in any company is developing a culture where everyone feels safe to talk about how they are doing – both personally and professionally. Many employers now offer mental health days for times when staff simply need some time out. A reward package could also be tailored to incorporate continuing professional development, for example, by supporting employees who wish to gain qualifications that could be an advantage both for themselves and the company they work for.

A culture of flexibility

Forward-thinking companies listen to employee preferences regarding their working setup. When staff know they have options, they can feel less stressed and more in control. This means that they’re less likely to experience burnout. Being able to work from home, where appropriate, could be a big factor in staff satisfaction and retention.

Diversity and inclusion

It’s been shown that companies with true gender diversity in leadership are more profitable. And that profitability goes up even further when ethnic and cultural diversity is also incorporated. So investing in diversity and inclusion is as good for the bottom line as it is for staff.

Measuring productivity

Levels of productivity may require more soft skills than hard data in today’s world. They are likely to link back to a company’s attitude to things like remote/hybrid working. Indicators of performance in today’s world can include factors such as collaboration, communication, positive work-life behaviour, and a coaching mindset.

How Zest can help rewards managers deal with the changing nature of benefits

Employee engagement elevated

Giving employees a modern, intuitive, easy-to-use platform provides them with everything they need to enjoy a truly personalised benefits selection and management experience. This means they can feel supported and understood by their company.

Perfectly personalised benefits

The Zest employee benefits platform has the ability to truly resonate with every individual in an organisation. It’s easy to create an engaging and personalised experience for any workforce. It won’t create additional work for rewards managers or generate unexpected costs.

Targeted benefit communications

Targeted and personalised benefit communications ensure the right messages reach the right people at the right time. This increases the awareness and value to employees of the benefit offering, right from day one.

Simple administration and insights

A powerful, easy-to-use admin dashboard facilitates automated benefit enrolment, connects seamlessly to other HR systems and makes it easy to automate key processes such as provider and payroll reporting.

Quick and simple set-up

The employee benefits platform can be up and running in a matter of days or weeks. Zest’s revolutionary Benefit Builder enables lightning-fast benefit configuration and dramatically quicker implementation. Changes can be made swiftly and painlessly at any time.

Employee benefits are changing – Zest makes it quick and easy to adapt

As we have seen, employees are demanding different things from the companies they work for today – even compared with a few years ago. It’s not essential to know all the answers, but it is vital to have an agile and intuitive employee benefits platform that can provide the data and versatility needed to adapt swiftly to the way people want to work today.

Get in touch with us to talk more about how our benefits platform is helping companies adapt to today’s challenges.