Konami Digital Entertainment

Case Study: Konami Digital Entertainment (KDE)

Award Category: Corporate Adviser Firm of the Year 2016

Background

KDE are involved in the design, manufacture and distribution of video games.

The values the HR team wish to promote within the business is to look after the personnel and ensure employee health and wellbeing remained a focus for the organisation.

We were introduced to KDE in May 2015 and asked to review the current benefit proposition and provide recommendations to address the following objectives.

Business Objectives

• To understand whether the existing benefits are competitive and ensure they are benefiting from competitive terms
• To increase the impact of the employee benefits in terms of employee awareness and to support the retention and recruitment of talent for the business
• To understand the options for introducing additional health and wellbeing services for the benefit of the employees at nil or low cost
• To understand the ancillary services that are available under their existing benefit schemes which are not currently being utilised
• To receive commentary on the suitability of the existing benefit structures and to have details of alternatives for consideration

Outcome of our Review

• Increased level of life assurance benefit for employees with longer term service as a reward for their loyalty
• Redesign of the income protection benefit scheme to maintain a highly valued benefit whilst delivering an annual saving of £30,000 for investment in additional benefit schemes
• The value added benefits offered by the scheme provider were promoted. These included an employee assistance program, early intervention and rehab support for absent employees, an online health assessment tool to help employees assess and monitor their health, discounted courses to help them stop smoking
• Switched their private healthcare scheme to a new provider with directly comparable benefits and reduced annual premium by £20,000. This reduced the tax liability for employees and enables KDE to invest in employee initiatives on a cost neutral basis
• We introduced a new health cash plan benefit which included health screening assessments to support KDE’s objective of promoting health and wellbeing within the business. This was funded by KDE for all employees and their children
• The new cash plan was promoted to employees via presentations at their offices which were well received and in the first 3 months since scheme launch the level of employee engagement has been high
• Implemented annual pension governance service
• Introduced the merits of offering salary exchange for the employee pension contributions
• Providing advice and support for KDE in run up to auto enrolment implementation in 2017
• We have issued KDE branded benefit summarises to enforce value of benefits to employees and the additional services these provide
• KDE are considering the use of our benefit communication platform to help enforce the overall value of the employees remuneration and reward as well as offering a range of voluntary benefits for selection by employees which would be funded via payroll deduction and discounts from online and high street stores and supermarkets