Client
The client was a large UK retailer of 90,000 employees within Head Office, retail stores and logistics/distribution centres.
Solution
- Reviewed the existing benefits strategy to more closely align to and enable the current business strategy.
- Reviewed over 50 benefits in the portfolio against market to understand competitiveness.
- Analysed existing benefit engagement feedback and completed focus group sessions to gain greater insight into employee benefit understanding and what they valued most in the proposition.
- Designed cost modelling with variables and parameters that could be used as "self-serve" tools for the client to assess cost and impact of future benefit improvements.
Challenge
- Unclear benefits position against market.
- Lack of clarity as to whether benefits were aligned to strategy.
- Benefits changes were not strategic.
- Lack of take-up of voluntary benefits.
- Lack of understanding for employees on benefits available.
- Decentralisation of benefit ownership with different benefit owners not always working collaboratively.
Impact
- Reviewed and updated benefit strategy to align to the business objectives and cultural expectations.
- Understanding of current market position of benefits.
- Employee insight into benefit understanding, value, engagement and satisfaction understood.
- Benefit owners engaged to identify common themes and approaches, gaps and opportunities to align or remove duplication.
- Employee engagement and satisfaction improved hence and greater return on investment.
Context
The client had 90,000 employees within Head Office, retail stores and logistics/distribution centres. They prided themselves on a market-leading benefits package but had not reviewed against market for a number of years. Whilst their benefit strategy was to be above-market on benefits, they did not know if this was still true, and recent benefit improvements had resulted in tactical rather than strategic benefit changes.
The Problem
- The benefit strategy was to be above-market on benefits, but they had not reviewed against market for several years and did not know if this was still true.
- Recent benefit improvements had resulted in tactical rather than strategic benefit changes.
- Take-up rates across the benefit proposition, particularly voluntary benefits were low, and concerns were raised around value for money/return on investment.
- Benefit ownership was decentralised so there were potential conflicts, opportunities to realign and work more collaboratively to remove duplications.
Which meant:
- Risk of inefficient benefits spend.
- Risk of drifting away from benefits strategic goals.
- Risk of duplication of Gaps in benefit.
- Risks of benefit proposition being so big that benefit owners and employees didn't really understand the benefit options available.
- Resource burden due to administering wide suite of little-used or unused benefits.
The Tension
The organisation prides itself on providing an above-market benefits offering but take-up was low across a wide suite of benefits, so the organisation needed to find a balance between maintaining the strategy and reinforcing values and getting good value for money from their benefits package.
What Reward Heads did
- We worked with the People Leadership to review and update the existing benefit strategy against the current business objectives and cultural expectations.
- Provided an in-depth view of market alignment of current benefits for each of the business segments.
- Analysed the available employee insight into benefit understanding, value, engagement and satisfaction and ran focus groups to gain a clear understanding of what employees expected, valued, used and wanted for the future.
- Engage with decentralised benefit owners to identify common themes and approaches, GAPs and opportunities to align, get them working more collaboratively and remove any duplication.
- Prepare a detailed paper of recommendations and easy to use cost modelling tools for the client to assess cost impacts with variances and changing parameters.
Business Impact
- The business had a clear benefit strategy and a range of options to implement over a 3-year roadmap with cost impacts.
People Impact
- Employees felt heard and responded to on benefits with an opportunity to input into the benefit strategic plan.
Which resulted in …
Leadership can now be confident they have a defined strategy for benefits that aligns to the business goals.
Employees have had input into their benefit design, feeling heard and responded to.
The Reward Team have a more collaborative and joined up approach with a clearer understanding of impacts and costs.
If this feels familiar …
It's common that, when organisations lose sight of their reward strategy, their reward and benefit provision becomes reactive and tactical, often losing employee engagement and satisfaction along the way.
