04 Feb 2021
Are you one of the many employers who only communicate employee benefits to new recruits as part of the on boarding process after an offer letter has been accepted? Were you aware that recent research conducted by GRiD, the industry body for the group risk sector, showed that 29% of employers think that ‘benefits are as important as salary’ in helping to recruit and retain employees and 33% believe potential staff are as interested in the wider benefits as they are in the salary’.
This is backed up by employees themselves, with 32% saying that employee benefits are as equally important to them as salary.
Not only is this a missed opportunity in terms of recruitment but it is also a missed opportunity to embed the value of employee benefits in the mind’s eye of staff. For benefits to be fully appreciated by a new member of staff, the conversation has to start early and the communication needs to be clear. However, if benefits are presented as an afterthought or secondary to pay, they lose some of their perceived value.
Employees’ right to a written statement of employment particulars
Did you know that new employment legislation was introduced on 6 April 2020 requiring employers to inform new employees in writing about their employment and benefits whether contractual or non-contractual excluding pension on day one or before, or upon request for existing employees. All organisations need to meet this obligation, so communicating them as part of the recruitment process seems a natural progression.
However, following this change in legislation, only 38% of employers communicate employee benefits in a welcome pack compared to 31% in 2019. Regardless of legislation, if you are spending a considerable amount of money on employee benefits why wouldn’t you want to promote these benefits to new and existing employees?
At Wingate Benefit Solutions we recognise the importance of promoting benefits to employees, to demonstrate that employers are not only meeting their duty of care with regards to supporting employee health and wellbeing but also that it is at the core of their culture.
We do this by providing bespoke member guides in plain English which can be provided to new recruits and existing employees. They explain what employee benefits are available and how they can be accessed.
In addition, as part of our annual employee benefit reviews we include a section “Added Value Benefits and Wellbeing Services” to remind employers of the additional services which are part of their specific group schemes which support employees health and wellbeing so they can be promoted to employees.
These are but a few ways that we can provide employers with assistance with communicating their employee benefits, other examples are providing new joiner email welcome packs and remote and/or onsite benefit presentations to new and existing employees.
Our strong belief in the importance of employee communications and employee wellbeing is reflected in our own organisation’s culture with Wingate recently being awarded the prestigious Investors in People Platinum accreditation. Platinum is the highest standard granted by Investors in People and is only achieved by 2% of the organisations with some form of Investors in People accreditation.
If you currently do not receive advice in this area, why risk your ability to recruit the best people into your organisation when you could appoint Wingate who provide these services as part of our standard service proposition at no additional cost.
Please get in touch if you would like a review of your existing employee benefits and communication strategies.
