The biggest employee engagement priorities for 2018, as told by HR Professionals at Employee Benefits Live

New research from global employee engagement company Reward Gateway has found that wellbeing, pay & benefits and recognition will be the top employee engagement priorities for HR professionals in 2018.

The research, which surveyed 565 HR professionals, echoes two studies undertaken by Reward Gateway earlier this year. These studies found that companies are looking to invest in areas which UK employees have said are crucial to them, but don’t feel as though their employers are adequately providing: wellbeing and recognition.

As the top agenda point, the importance of wellbeing in the workplace was echoed in a study conducted by Reward Gateway in September 2017, which discovered an astounding 22 million British workers, or 7 in 10 employees (71%), have felt stress or financial strain in the last five years. Despite these numbers, the same research also found that a third of respondents said that their company currently offers no wellbeing programmes.

As with wellbeing, the importance of recognition cannot be understated. A study completed in May 2017, again from Reward Gateway, found that 59% of employees surveyed would rather work for a business with a culture where they received recognition, over a higher salary job. The significance of recognition is reflected by the fact that  nearly half of employees (49%) surveyed admitting that they would leave a company if they did not receive recognition.

The full ranking of employer priorities in the recent study is as follows:

1. Wellbeing (171)
2. Pay & Benefits (86)
3. Recognition (81)
4. Open & Honest Communications (59)
5. Leadership (42)
6. Purpose, Mission & Values (40)
7. Management (35)
8. Job Design (20)
9. Learning (20)
10. Workspace (11)

Doug Butler, CEO of Reward Gateway says: “The ten elements used in our survey are all key parts of building a successful relationship with employees and creating a more engaged workforce and culture - what we call The Engagement Bridge.

“The clear spotlight on wellbeing, recognition, and pay and benefits is something we saw at the beginning of 2017. By expanding our wellbeing offering with a new Wellbeing Centre, further innovating our continuous employee recognition solution, and strengthening our leadership in employee benefits, Reward Gateway’s employee engagement platform continues to increase its depth of solutions for HR. By addressing these issues head-on with our clients, we can all work to make the world a better place to work.

To learn more about how organisations such as BrewDog and Citation are tackling some of these areas, please click here.

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For further information, please contact rewardgateway@fanclubpr.com or call +44 20 7096 1375

Notes to editors:

• The wellbeing research was conducted in September 2017 and surveyed 250 employees and 250 employers (senior decision makers) in the UK. It was undertaken by Censuswide
• The recognition research was conducted in May 2017 and surveyed 500 workers and 500 senior decision makers in each country (UK, US, Australia) and was undertaken by Atomik
• The HR priorities research was conducted in October 2017 at Employee Benefits Live and polled 565 HR professionals who attended the event

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