Are employee benefit communications with staff all 'gadrags and handbags', asks John Ritchie.
While recently presenting at a meeting for benefit buyers at a major employee benefit consultancy, I was struck by the acceptance of a dumbing-down in major employee benefit schemes.
I'd better explain myself, hadn't I?
In my own company's scheme, we get an email every week alerting us to online shopping discounts, two for one January restaurant offers and similar highly attractive but, let's face it, ‘fluffy' offers.
Contrast that to the amount of communication there is of the major foundations of employees' security and the welfare of their families.
By that I mean the catastrophe covers - disability income replacement, life cover and perhaps critical illness, too, for major and acute health incidents.
When I challenged the benefit managers and buyers in the room on how often they actively communicated about these foundation benefits, the looks on their faces told me that they never do.
The flex benefit window opens for four weeks and of course people can choose to increase their cover, or indeed drop it down if they have no dependents or pressing need for much life cover. But is that really enough?
Yes, we render the value in terms of the cost of these benefits in total reward statements but that really doesn't mean very much as research proves time and again that people have very little sense of the relative cost, and value, of these covers.
Communication always starts with asking questions and listening carefully. What about some quick email surveys of your work community to test their levels of awareness of how much cover is provided for them?
These are very quick to set up and are the work of moments to complete. If employees are to appreciate the true value of the cover these benefits provide, establishing the current levels of awareness is an important first step.
Now I like the gladrags - definitely not the handbags - and a good meal out as much as any of my colleagues, but we really shouldn't assume that the people in our work communities are incapable of focusing on important security and planning issues for their families.
We should not patronise them. We can, and should, be more ambitious.
John Ritchie is CEO of group provider Ellipse
