Many employers are disappointed by the lack of engagement in their employee benefit initiatives. Whether it’s down to poor design, poor execution by the provider or inadequate communication strategies, getting your staff to get the best out of your benefits package can be a real challenge.
These top eight communications tips will help you supercharge your ability to get the message out to your workforce.
1. Be an advocate for your initiative yourself. Use the benefit religiously and talk about it wherever you go. Get the rest of your HR team to promote it internally on your employee engagement platform.
Have someone on the team start a blog or video series introducing the new initiative, or add some fun announcements to your homepage. If you all love it, your staff will love it too.
We created our own teaser campaign on our employee engagement platform. The campaign consisted of a 10-day countdown. Each day we opened one of the “doors” to reveal information about the benefit and what employees could use their allowance for and even set up “Wellbeing Champions” to help spread awareness. This campaign was much more engaging and we even included our employees’ faces in the doors instead of using stock photo content.
2. Think about the needs and preferences of your workforce: They might be different to your own. Focus on the offers and benefits that will truly resonate with your workforce. There are often several groups (and generations) with different needs, so it's key that your benefits appeal to all employees.
3. Think about HR flash points in the year where the benefit initiative can help promote other employee initiatives. Integrate the communications and plan your strategy well in advance to get the highest impact. By dovetailing your initiatives together, they will lend each other support and appear more integrated to employees.
4. Get your marketing department and internal communications team on board early when creating a benefits brand. You don’t want any nasty surprises or setbacks before launch, and you want full support of those in your organisation who have a big impact on communication. Take advantage of your employee engagement platform and be sure to include employees in new initiatives to increase participation.
5. Recruit Benefits Champions in as many departments, offices, locations and divisions as you can. Give them early access to your plan, train them, and arm them with information and FAQs. Equip them with everything necessary to promote the initiative to their colleagues.
6. Use employee presentations to take the message face to face. Work with someone who can sign up employees on the spot to increase engagement and walk through your platform in-person. Be sure to include offsite or offline employees in your communications. You can set up time to walk through the platform so everyone feels included and aware.
7. Take advantage of every piece of communications and mail that goes out to your employees and utilise every channel. Communicate via the back of letters and on the envelope itself, payslip flyers and inserts - absolutely everything you can find. Take advantage of your platform by sharing launch posters with your people.
8. Above all, choose an amazing benefits provider that can do all this for you and support you through the whole process. Having a dedicated team who understands your goals is key to transforming your company.
What next step will you take towards improving employee benefits engagement? Get in touch with our team to learn how we can help you improve employee engagement at your organisation.
