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 8 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 in their email footer. If you all love it, your staff will love it too.
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 really resonate with your workforce. There are often several groups with different needs.
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.
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.
7. Take advantage of every piece of communications and mail that goes out to your employees and utilise every channel. One of our clients notifies their employees (who are mostly working in underground mine!) via SMS and sends newsletters straight to their home address, highlighting specific discounts or inviting them to log into their platform from their smartphone and access discounts instantly.
8. Above all, choose an amazing employee benefits and recognition and rewards provider that can do all this for you and support you through the whole process.
