Don't let employee benefits become a grind

Benefit technology has been quietly evolving and has become more accessible and affordable. Employee recruitment and retention is competitive and challenging, with reward remaining a key aspect. Companies competing with larger employers can level the playing field by going ‘digital’.

This is the first of two articles that looks at benefit technology and the aspects that are assisting employers with the managing and delivery of their employee benefit packages. It will culminate in a webinar on 5 December 2019.

Just like brewing the perfect cup of coffee, there are several important ingredients and steps to achieve perfection with your benefit offering. Your remuneration and benefits reinforce the profile and culture of your business and differentiate you from competitors. If you can gain an advantage, why not exploit it?

Regardless of the number of benefits you offer, or your annual benefit spend, there are a number of challenges you may be facing:

1. Control of data - It can be onerous and time consuming to keep staff and benefit data accurate and secure
2. Benefit administration - This can involve significant resource if aspects are still done manually, or data has to be collated and manipulated from separate HR and Payroll systems
3. Succession - The loss of key personnel can mean knowledge of benefits and processes are lost and transition of responsibilities can result in errors and compliance issues
4. Management Information (MI) - Insufficient MI can make key benefit decisions difficult and can also lead to governance issues
5. Scalability - As your business grows it can become more challenging to scale and adapt your benefits offering, so there may be a reluctance to change. As a result, the existing benefits become less competitive
6. Employee engagement - The understanding of benefits and the perception of their value may be low. If benefits are not accessible and there is no regular communication, their effectiveness as a retention tool is significantly diminished

These challenges can all be overcome, perhaps not overnight, but with a focus on utilising technology, they may be easier to achieve than you expect!

Modern benefit technology is designed to be intuitive, easy to use and efficient. It can provide employers hungry to go ‘digital’ with a massive opportunity to improve the blend of benefits and communicate more effectively with a growing agile workforce looking for greater work life balance.

A competitive benefit package can go a long way to helping employees feel rewarded, but an increasing focus will be on making administration more efficient and improved, relevant communication to employees.

Our second article will concentrate on how benefit technology can assist employers with the challenges above. Keep an eye out for it as it will be published very soon.

To find out more and how we can help your business, join us on our webinar on 5 December at 11am.

Register for the webinar