Why haven't your benefits gone digital yet?

In our article “8 ways to shake up your employee benefits” we identified that the introduction of benefit technology in the SME market would accelerate quickly. We see no reason to change our opinion!

Today, 85% of the UK population own a smartphone. These small hand-held devices have changed our lives in countless ways, perhaps the biggest change is how we consume information and communicate - digitally, with ease, whenever and wherever we choose.

With this change comes a massive opportunity for employers to enhance the way they manage and promote their benefits offering. Are you prepared to take the leap? Given the needs of employees are ever changing, with a flight toward digital, can you afford to be left behind?

An increasing number of businesses are seeking to communicate their benefits and reward programmes in a more modern and effective manner. In most business sectors, the demand for high calibre staff outweighs supply. Those able to improve the perception of the value of their reward package are more likely to win the retention battle.

These four questions will help you determine whether you should ‘go digital’:

1. Is your current benefit administration too complicated and time consuming?
2. Do employees find it difficult to access information on their benefits?
3. Is there a general lack of understanding of the available benefits, and their worth?
4. Do you have trouble measuring the success of your benefits programme?

The fear of change?

Employees are more mobile in their working practices and also more demanding about how they want to engage and be communicated with. As a result, paper-based, written benefit communications are becoming less effective for today’s modern workforce.

In recent years we have seen significant developments in benefit technology. Systems are becoming more functional, easier to use and affordable for employers. Benefits technology has been around for a long time and gone through various cycles of complexity, with flex benefits dictating what should and should not be available. How times have changed.

The benefit systems of today are available to employers of all sizes and can be as simple or as complex as you require. They empower employers to manage and administer their benefits more effectively and give employees access on multiple devices. Employees can view their benefits, select and buy, and understand the value (in terms of their benefits and total remuneration) from the palm of their hand.

What to expect: features and functionality

A benefits system is essentially an online hub that helps you to integrate and manage multiple functions in the one place, while also providing meaningful reporting and benefit information. These eight features can make an employer’s working life easier:

1. Integration. A core HR system or simple integration with separate HR and Payroll systems.
2. Administration. Benefit administration for savings, protection, healthcare and lifestyle benefits, as well as flexible benefit capability.
3. Governance. Full audit trails on all activities by users to improve governance.
4. Automation. Standard and bespoke automated reporting and Management Information (MI) to simplify scheme renewals.
5. Bolt-ons.  From absence management to holiday booking and trading, reward & recognition, voluntary benefits, storage of payslips, P11Ds and P60s.
6. Simplicity. Single sign-on and straight through access to selected external sites.
7. Engagement. Paperless communication and total reward statements for employees, online, at any time.
8. Access. Employer and employee access via desktop, tablet, laptop or smartphone.

Modern benefit technology is designed to be intuitive, easy to use and efficient. It can enable smaller employers to improve the diversity of their benefits offering, make it easier to communicate with employees, and assist in managing benefits more cost effectively.

With technology continuing to evolve at an alarming rate, you can either keep up or lose business and staff to those firms who do. Employee benefits systems allow greater flexibility and help you reach your audience on their terms. Is now the time for you to ‘go digital’?

How we can help?

Vested Employee Benefits Limited is a collaboration between Mazars LLP and Embark Group. Combining advisory expertise with a creative and modern approach, we will work with you to reinvigorate your approach to managing employee benefits and help you achieve greater employee engagement.

If you would like to discuss our Identity™ benefit system, we would be delighted to have an initial discussion, at no cost, to investigate whether we are able to assist you.

We work with employers who want to actively develop and enhance their benefit proposition, those open to considering alternative approaches to improve their impact in the workplace. Our main focus is the medium and larger SME market (100 to 750 employees) who may already offer a range of benefits but are looking to modernise, improving employee engagement and the return on their benefit spend.