Benefits Connection by Asperity Employee Benefits

Engage your employees in 3 simple steps

admin — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 10:00:21 +0000

What does employee engagement mean to you?

When an employee’s self- interest is aligned with the interests of the organisation, that employee is engaged. If you can get the interests of your whole workforce to match those of your business, it follows that their efforts will further the interests of the business while simultaneously furthering their own. It’s a win win situation.

But is it integral? Businesses the world over, since organised work began, have been surviving and sometimes succeeding without engaging employees. So why is it a big deal? Why bother to engage with the workforce when you can get by with half-heartedness? Why isn’t it enough just to pay the going rate and expect employees to deliver and, especially in these uncertain times, be grateful they’ve got a job?

Because it’s not. Employers need to bother with engagement because the workplace, the business and the world are better if they do. In most organisations, it is really difficult at the outset to find a measure that conclusively (or even elusively) correlates employee engagement with organisation performance, be that profit or something else, so those with influence have to start by believing it. It is necessary for the senior management to know that engaged employees equal better business performance. And it’s not enough to just engage a few critical employees, though that is better than no-one at all.

You need to go get ‘em all. The students who work 2 hours a week, the people who are notching off the months to retirement, the holders of low status posts, the high-flyers and the professional services crew, the whole shebang.

‘Engagement’ is one of the biggest HR challenges businesses face. Organisations need to bother because engagement is the holy grail of workplace relations. It is a virtuous circle: engaged employee – better results – deeper engagement.

Engagement is not really about money, although the right level of cash needs to be thought through. Money cannot buy
real engagement, although it can prevent active dis-engagement. In any case, most employers have limited room for remunerative manoeuvrability so mechanisms other than money need to be leveraged to deliver engagement.

The following 3 steps are a good place to start…

1 Tell employees as much about business performance as you possibly can.

This is easier in small organisations, but not impossible in large ones which tend to have better defined, if not better used, channels
for distributing information. What do people like to know? Most things really. Work is where they spend much of their waking time, invest their professional hopes, want to do a good job and have that acknowledged. If it irritates that politicians frequently patronise the electorate with half- truths and platitudes, why don’t senior managers learn from that? Tell people what is going on: good, bad, indifferent, uncertain, what-ifs and the rest. Ideally, tell them in person but if not, use whatever is at your disposal. People don’t root for things they don’t understand or know about, so help them understand and they will start to care.

2 Work hard on front-line managers; they’re the bridge to success.

These are the employees you most need on board. In any company it is likely there is one set of people with significant sway. Typically,
it will be the first level of line managers. They will be managing new joiners, long stayers, staff who deal with customers or who are vital for service delivery. These front liners will be powerful barometers of what’s up or down, and highly influential. If they are not with you, they might not be actively against you but you are missing out on their power as advocates and, worse, alienating not only that group but all the workforce who report to them.

3 Wrap employees in effective non-salary benefits that underscore the whole value
of the psychological contract.

Staff value benefits disproportionately highly to the cost of the benefit to the employer, which is good news because many benefits come at a low price to the employer, making them extremely cost-effective. What sort of things should you consider?

• Awards and recognition: long service (but ask yourself, is 15 years really where to start?) and performance; people really like their contribution to be recognised.

• Employee discounts: for a few pounds per head, your employees save hundreds of pounds on everyday goods and services. You need to pay for a service to avoid employees being a sales channel for retailers, so get a scheme with choice, independence and full back-up service.

• Tax efficient salary sacrifice: first, of course, pensions. If you don’t enable employees to salary sacrifice pension contributions, start now. Put it top of your list. Add in childcare vouchers and cycle to work and you’re away.

And more. Employee Benefits magazine notes the “increasing importance placed on reward by UK organisations and recognition of the role benefits have to play in supporting wider business objectives”. A tiny, tiny percentage of your payroll budget would deliver real value in benefits. And benefits deliver real employee engagement.

Long live the savvy shopper: Employee discounts are here to stay

admin — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:00:47 +0000

The impact of the double-dip recession has sparked major changes in consumer behaviour that has led to a distinct rise in the popularity of discount programmes.

High inflation and flat wage growth mean the vast majority of people have less to spend, and research shows the trend is here to stay. With public spending cuts in the UK only just starting to take effect, research from Experian suggests that consumers will need to endure another five years of austerity measures. With this in mind, the introduction of an employee discounts programme is likely to be a good investment, and one that is incredibly useful to your staff. No-one is immune to discounts anymore, which makes discounts not only valuable and relevant, but an essential part of your benefits portfolio.

The culture shift suggests that your employees have a completely different approach to shopping now than they did five years ago. Sainsbury’s director of loyalty and customer insight Andrew Mann analyses the changing face of consumer activity: “[Customers] are more risk-averse, are saving more, and also shopping in more cost-conscious ways”, he says. “They are wasting less, buying promotions and looking for value in everything”.

All consumers, whatever their income, have been affected to some degree by the economic downturn, with the biggest increase in discount uptake coming from the ‘professional rewards’ segment of shoppers. While these wealthier groups, such as bankers or lawyers, have more disposable income, research shows they also have higher everyday cost burdens to bear. Half of UK residents find it harder to meet their spending budgets now than they did a year ago and believe that the economic situation has worsened in that time. In other words, there’s nobody who can afford not to try and save money.

Shoppers have also become used to employing money-saving tactics, such as using price comparison sites, seeking out deals and shopping across different value ranges for different products. Opting for an employee discounts provider that can run integrated price comparisons for you therefore is a huge benefit to your employees. While many providers only offer the option to search by retailer, Asperity’s integrated product search is the most intuitive search function in the employee discounts market. Its InsureCompareTM product additionally enables users to compare the best deals on home and car insurance without ever leaving their employee discounts portal.

Owner of the Nectar loyalty card brand Aimee Bryan recognises that “UK consumers have begun to engage more strongly with promotions, both in-store and through offers sent to them through mail, email and mobile phone”. Communicating the value of your discounts programme is essential for its success, and you need to adopt a variety of tactics to reach everyone in your workforce.

The rising movement of consumer empowerment through new technology has accelerated, so picking a provider with cutting- edge features, such as a fully functional employee discounts app, will be a huge boost to their engagement with the programme.

In line with the rising trend to research prices online before going out shopping, an employee discounts app could enable your employees to shop and save on the move.

Sainsbury’s Mann believes the deal-seeking mentality is here to stay: “We see the trend of savvy shoppers as one that will continue. Our customers like the behaviour they have adopted and feel it is emotionally rewarding”, he says. This opinion is echoed by brands across retail, with James Foord of MySupermarket.com saying it is now “fashionable” for consumers to look around for deals and shop at a variety of price ranges in order to optimise their spending.

Employee discounts are very much at the low cost end of the benefits spectrum, but represent an incongruously high value to everyone in your workforce. Companies should understand that the economic situation isn’t improving all too rapidly, and introduce a benefit that is useful to their entire workforce. Your employees have accepted the shift and changed their behaviour accordingly, and it’s time employers recognised this and stepped up to the mark.

Ross Truesdale is the Head of Retail for Asperity Employee Benefits.

Bridging the gap between employer and employee

admin — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:00:22 +0000

Employee discounts have long been considered the lighter side of employee benefits, and let’s be honest, they’re much easier to engage with than say – pensions for example. Discounts can help businesses promote good relationships with their staff, because the invaluable money-saving opportunities they present signify a timeless relevance. Discounts mean shopping, and everybody needs to shop.

Not only are discounts a good way to relate to your staff, but when money’s tight, they allow people to justify treating themselves once in a while. To feel better about spending money when there might not be much of it around. To save money on the necessaries and feel a little less guilty about spending on the luxuries. It’s a benefit that’s continuously useful to your entire workforce, and one which has the power to brighten your day.

For these reasons, it’s typical for employers to want to associate themselves with this strand of their benefits package so that they themselves look like the benefactors.

The result often manifests in an organisation’s attempt at running their own discount programme, in-house. Many companies offer their staff a package of discounts that they’ve negotiated themselves, often with shops and services in the local area. Or they might offer their own brand of discounts, like ‘NHSdiscounts’or ‘Teacherscashback’ for example.

In either case however, these deals will be limited to the organisation you belong to, depending on what you do or who you work for. Like some form of commercial karma, if your job involves helping others, such as nursing or teaching, then companies are lining up to offer you discounts on their products.

Of course, the retailers offering the discounts through these sorts of schemes are driven by commercial interests, not generosity, so it’s questionable how useful these offers really are.

Another reason these internal discount schemes often fall down is because nobody knows about them. Details of these local or company offers are usually tucked away on the company intranet or in the unread staff handbook you chucked into the bottom of your draw when you first started at the company.

It’s simple – your HR department doesn’t have time to devise innovative ways of getting the message out to your workforce, so why not let the experts take the burden off your hands?

Communicating the value of your discount package is the key to its success. By choosing an employee discounts provider that can identify the key messages to grab the attention of your staff, you’re much more likely to get good uptake with your discounts programme. And it’s only by getting your employees to use it that you maintain your humanitarian image.

An external provider like Asperity has 100% supplier independence from retailers, so you know that your staff are getting the biggest choice and the highest rates available. And if you’re worried that taking a backseat will detach your company brand from the discounts, pick a provider that seamlessly integrates your employer branding into every piece of communication, so that your employees know the benefit is coming from you.

Get someone to do the hard work for you. Brighten some more days and watch engagement soar.

Top 10 reasons to implement Cycle To Work

admin — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:00:52 +0000

October 3rd 2012. Once again I am faced with the hideous thought of catching the stuffy and crowded train home, followed by the wait for the bus and then my tedious walk home from the bus station. With the large majority of London traffic moving an average speed of 10mph, it seems ironic that walking home would get me there in the same amount of time as the transport methods available to me. Cycling to work changed all of that.

Since the programme was introduced by the Government, the Cycle to Work tax-free benefit has seen more than 40,000 employees join, and revolutionised the way in which commuters view their journey to work. With the recent Olympic Games radiating its sporting energy and stirring up new interest in sporting pursuits there has never been a better time to encourage a healthier and happier workforce.

Not only does the scheme offer employees a cheap and healthy way to travel to work, but employers can also reap the benefits. We’ve put together our top 10 list of reasons why CycleToWorkPlus™ may be the solution you have been searching for…

1 A Cycle to Work module is going to save your business money. You don’t pay Employer’s National Insurance Contributions (typically 13.8%) on any sacrificed salary.

2 A fit, healthy and happy workforce. People who cycle experience a 39% lower rate of all- cause mortality compared to those who do not.

3 Less stressed staff. Cycling to work has a positive effect on mental and emotional wellbeing. Improving this leads to increased self-confidence, less stress and a better attendance record for staff.

4 The average person cycling to work will save 6% of their annual carbon footprint. This is great news for any company’s corporate social responsibility.

5 Reduces the amount of required parking on site, freeing up land that could be used for other purposes.

6 Another benefit to attract new recruits, contributing to the wider perception of your organisation as an employer of choice.

7 Helps to retain staff. With a minimum 12 month contract, it can assist in staff postponing any job changes.

8 Local authorities with budgets to promote cycling may well provide bike sheds FREE of charge or at a reduced cost to the employer.

9 Especially for those based in cities, cycling to work offers a great alternative to travelling on the often hot and overly crowded public transport. Cycling will often be quicker than either the bus or the train for employees to get to work, with cyclists traveling at an average speed of 12-15mph and drivers at 7mph.

10 Some providers like Asperity offer a great range of additional benefits to all those who apply for a bike through the scheme, for example a FREE 6 week bike service and voucher booklet full of great offers. With discounts available on the Halfords Apollo range, your employees will be able to kit out their whole family.

So you may be wondering what financial benefit your company can expect to receive, having implemented the programme. Any employer can use this simple formula to see the saving that they can make from providing CycleToWorkPlus™ to their employees.

Average Uptake (3% of workforce) x Average bike Value (£350) x NIC (13.8%) = saving!!!

With a workforce of 1000 employees an average uptake would be 30 employees. The average amount applied for is £350 which would give an order total of £10,500.

To calculate the saving, multiply by 13.8% (Employer National Insurance Contribution) and the result delivers a saving of £1386.

CycleToWorkPlus™, Asperity’s exclusive cycle to work product, offers you the simplest and most generous solution for facilitating the programme. With the module integrated into your Reward Gateway portal, double discounts on key cycle-related retailers and a communications package tailored to your workforce we can help you achieve a healthier, greener and more productive workforce.

So far, Asperity’s CycleToWorkPlus™ has put 8,810 employees on their bikes and saved our clients a total of over half a million pounds. What are you waiting for?

Dealing with Auto-Enrolment: The prep, the fall-out and beyond

admin — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:13:22 +0000

We’ve had months if not years to prepare for it, but this week saw auto-enrolment finally land on our laps for many large corporations, with compulsory changes for everyone else lurking imminently around the corner. It’s been the hot topic of the season for anyone working in HR and benefits, and marks the biggest shake-up of pensions for a generation. The new pensions legislation will affect every employer in the country and will be effective across the board from 2017 whether you’ve done your homework or not.

Many questions continue to hang in the air for organisations large and small as they get to grips with the nitty gritty of the changes to workplace pension law. What if my company already has a pension scheme? How much do I have to contribute? What do I have to do to put auto-enrolment in place? What about salary sacrifice? The biggest question on many people’s lips is: How will I find the time to make sure my company meets the new legislation?

You may find that the best choice is for some one to take that burden off your hands. Auto-enrolment means a big change for all companies, and enlisting some one to help with that challenge may be the easiest and most cost-effective answer. Aviva’s Auto-Enrolment Manager (AME) is one of the simplest solutions, whether you just need a little help understanding your responsibilities in the first instance, or ongoing.

While the reform is undoubtedly a step in the right direction to combat the ticking time bomb of an ageing population, not all employees will see it like that. For those on minimum wage, any cut to their take-home page is bound to be bad news, and many HR and benefits teams can expect a negative response from employees as a result.

Staff will initially have to contribute a minimum of one per cent of salary, but this is planned to rise to five per cent from 2017. With employers obliged to contribute between one and five per cent themselves, the opportunities for rewarding employees in other ways will inevitably diminish. How do you make sure you continue to engage your staff with your benefits package while combatting the fall-out from hard-done by employees? The sensible solution would be to introduce give your employees something new to smooth things over, but when budgets are tight your choices are limited.

An employee discount programme is the perfect benefit to introduce in times of austerity, for a whole host of reasons. It’s low cost to you as an employer, but represents a disproportionately high value to the employee, with the potential to save each person thousands of pounds a year. Auto-enrolment will mean that your employees have less disposable income to play with, but by providing access to huge discounts at thousands of big-name brands maximises your employees’ salaries for spending on the essentials and the luxuries as well.

Employee discounts not only represent the lighter side of employee benefits, but translate into real value to the end user. By picking a provider like Asperity with the biggest choice in the market, you cater for every single person in your workforce, no matter how diverse.

New accolades for the voluntary benefits industry

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:00:35 +0000

Everyone likes to receive recognition for their hard work, but day to day, gestures of appreciation from your peers might be few and far between.

As an HR and benefits professional you know how important it is to recognise and reward your staff to keep them motivated and happy, and the truth is it works exactly the same for you.

Reward incentives in the workplace are one thing, but what bigger accolade than the privilege of being awarded the title of best in your industry?

Until recently, voluntary benefits has been one of those industries that’s just too niche to have its own awards ceremony. There are plenty of awards for HR and employee benefits in the wider spectrum, but there are very few categories that dedicate their attention to voluntary employee benefits on their own. It was in response to this that Asperity Employee Benefits launched a new awards programme this year to provide fresh opportunities for their clients to be recognised for their work in the industry.

The Benefits Excellence Awards is the first awards programme in the world to focus exclusively on voluntary benefits. Starting the call for entries in April this year, Asperity encouraged all 650 of its clients to submit an entry. Although the 2012 event will be the first of its kind, The Benefits Excellence Awards will be an annual event going forward, giving plenty of scope for future victory to clients and prospective clients alike.

By focusing specifically on voluntary benefits, the new awards programme will showcase success in a number of new categories. Achievements such as ‘Most effective programme launch’ and ‘Most innovative communication strategy’ are up for grabs, giving more HR and benefits professionals than ever before the chance to earn deserved respect amongst their peers. Encouraging green and CSR initiatives is also high on Asperity’s agenda, introducing a category that is being sponsored by new green engagement company, Viridien.

George Farrow, Client Services Director at Asperity explained; ‘We just didn’t feel there were enough opportunities for our clients to be rewarded for their work in voluntary benefits.

Other award programmes pay homage to it but we felt that there were many more categories deserving of attention, which is why we decided to launch The Benefits Excellence Awards.’

Entries will be judged by a panel of experienced, knowledgeable leaders in the benefits industry, with the winners due to be announced at a spectacular awards ceremony at the Tate Modern in September, arranged to fit neatly with the Employee Benefits Live trade show.

Hosted on the first day of the exhibition, guests will have the chance to network with other finalists and peers, representing some of the finest and most innovative minds in the industry. Tickets are free for awards finalists, with any proceeds from additional seats (£175 each) donated to charity.

‘We’ve already received a huge amount of interest from clients and everyone’s really looking forward to a memorable celebration of everything our finalists have achieved’ said George Farrow. ‘It’s a fantastic way to raise the profile of your employer brand.’

For more information on The Benefits Excellence Awards, visit www.benefitsexcellenceawards.co.uk

Getting the most out of your employee discounts programme

admin — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:00:11 +0000

The persistence of the uncertain state of the economy means that both employers and employees are considering ways to maximise their budgets.

If you have invested in your employee benefits programme and have included employee discounts in your package, then now is a good time to consider how you can help your employees get the most from your benefits programme as a whole. Not only will your employees reap financial rewards, but so will you as they fully appreciate the value of their benefit package.

Deliver great savings and rewards

Employee discounts shouldn’t be about encouraging your employees to spend more or change their shopping habits; primarily it should be about delivering great savings and rewards on those purchases that they are making anyway. For this to be possible you need to be sure that your discount programme offers a wide range of offers across a spectrum of categories. The offers need to be regularly updated with a range of exciting promotions and deals. And employees need to know about the scheme and be constantly reminded about what’s available.

Illustrate the savings

Headline discounts are obviously attractive and help to gain interest but often it’s the accumulation of everyday regular savings, that makes a really big difference. So look at ways you can help demonstrate where the benefit lies. Relevant savings illustrations and colleague testimonials can be great tools. Some discount providers are even including personalised ‘Reward Statements’ as an integral part of their service – which is proving to be really valuable.

Kishan Hickman, Head of Development at Asperity Employee Benefits said “We became aware that members just weren’t keeping a tally of how much the discount platform was saving them and that is why we introduced the personalised Reward Statement to the user’s home page. It shows just how much the user has earned in their Cashback account and reminds them of what other great benefits they haven’t yet taken advantage of. It lists the savings on their reloadable card top-ups and instant SMS discounts – and even factors in the savings made from other benefits like childcare vouchers (CCVs) or cycle to work. People are really amazed at how quickly and by how much the savings add up, and it’s a really good way of conveying the value of your total benefits package to employees.”

Cross-promotion also helps to raise awareness

When your employee notifies you that they are pregnant or register for paternity leave, this is a good time to remind them about your discount programme. With research suggesting that the average family spends £1,560 before the baby is born and a staggering £165,000 raising a child to 21, then highlighting the potential discounts available is sure to be of interest. If you have an integrated voluntary benefits package that includes childcare vouchers for example, then make sure your provider is also capitalising on the opportunity to highlight the discounts that may be of interest to an employee registering for CCVs.

The whole family can benefit

Different family members might be responsible for different shopping tasks, whether it’s renewing the home insurance and utility contracts, completing the monthly food shop or undertaking the Christmas shopping. Make sure all those that can benefit from your programme are doing so.

It’s all about reminding your employees of the different ways your discounts programme can benefit them. Having a discount offering which is varied enough to catch their attention, coupled with a provider that designs and implements your communcation strategy for you will really impact on engagement. It’s these regular reminders that succeed in creating conversation amongst your workforce, leading to your employees promoting the programme by themselves.

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility

admin — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:00:35 +0000

It’s more important than ever before for an organisation to consider its impact on the environment.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an unavoidable part of business strategy. Potential and current clients want suppliers to prove their sustainability credentials. Customers and interested parties are more able than ever to look into the activities, good or bad, of a company through just a few minutes’ worth of Google searching. And I can tell you now, that more than 75% of UK employees consider it important to work for a company that has an active policy to reduce its environmental impact*.

Many companies will make sure they publish green PR so that the wider world knows that they are, indeed, ‘doing their bit’. There’s nothing wrong with that – the more companies shout about what they’re doing, the more companies that are lagging behind on CSR will need to buck up their ideas before their sales start to suffer. But what many organisations forget to do is communicate their green objectives and strategy to their employees. Moreover, they neglect to engage their employees with their green agenda and therefore miss a huge opportunity to harness the collective power of their workforce.

Quote from Graham Simmonds, Chairman of Viridien:
‘Having an interactive forum for green objectives really makes a difference to how engaged your employees are with your agenda. Not only does the hub highlight the relevance of green issues to the individual, it’s really effective at raising awareness across the board. The ability to generate a conversation and share tips means that everyone has a voice and feels part of the company’s sustainability efforts’.

Here’s a few tips on how to effectively communicate CSR initiatives to your workforce.

Senior management buy-in
Convey your message from the top down. This is really important as employees’ confidence in their employers as responsible organisations may be dependent on messages coming from the top.
Direct messages from senior management in video format are an excellent way to get across what the company is doing to promote sustainability and why CSR is important.

Explore different channels
Organisations need to be aware of the specific demographics of their workforce and communicate to them accordingly. Utilising new technologies and other tools, for example the intranet, are a great way to promote CSR messages.
Find out the channels that are best suited to your workforce and maximise them to convey your messages about sustainability.

Initiate discussion/debate
Employees want to feel like they have a say in the direction CSR strategy takes. Provide them with a platform to discuss things like the environmental impact of the business or potential community activities, for example Balfour Beatty’s hub; ‘A collective responsibility’.

A community area like Viridien’s eCubed web hub is another fantastic example of a hub for promoting green events and freecycling amongst your employees. This interactive forum also includes an ecological footprint calculator, weekly green tips, and a wealth
of information assisting employees to make better informed choices; whether it is considering their next holiday, switching utility provider or buying their food.

Have one accessible area to house all CSR info
Whether it’s environmental strategy or volunteering projects, if all information regarding CSR is easily accessible through one online area then employees will find it much easier to find and engage with.

Reward engagement
Encourage engagement in CSR activities by rewarding employee participation. If you’ve introduced incentives for taking part, you can even make the bonus relevant to your CSR objectives. For example, eco friendly rewards such as ethically made gifts or fair trade “green goodies” work wonders for engagement with environmental policy.

Talk about the future
Let employees know that your current initiatives are just the beginning. Environmental strategy is always evolving at the same rate as technological advances and employees want to be reassured that they won’t be left behind.

Innovate
Try and introduce new ways of communicating CSR objectives. Modern modes of interaction like social media can be really effective at creating a buzz about your green initiatives, as are videos and podcasts to your wider workforce. New ideas will ensure that CSR stays fresh and interesting to your employees.

Outsource Media
When possible attempt to feature in outside publications. Employees like to know that the organisation they work for is leading the way in combatting sustainability issues. By innovating and communicating your agenda in new and exciting ways, you’ll automatically raise your profile in the wider arena.

Megan Gough is MD of Viridien. For more information on green engagement strategy, visit www.viridien.co.uk

* The Carbon Trust

Employer profile: Just-Eat.co.uk

admin — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:00:26 +0000

Just-Eat, the world market leader in online takeaway food ordering, achieved fantastic take-up of its new employee benefits programme as a result of a particularly innovative teaser campaign.

The company released a number of cryptic hints about the programme in the run-up to launch, which succeeded in creating a real buzz amongst its workforce.

Partnering with Asperity Employee Benefits for the provision of integrated voluntary benefits, the programme offered employee discounts, e-Cards, an employee-paid healthcare Cashplan and Cycle to Work. The new streamlined package was successfully launched at the end of March 2012. Achieving 60% engagement in just two weeks, and now up to almost 70% (May 2012) – it is clear that the programme entitled ‘Just-Treats’ is already thriving.

Based over two offices in London, excitement first started to build amongst Just-Eat’s employees a few weeks before launch in response to a series of teaser posters. Each poster featured a ‘treat’ which was followed up with a corresponding surprise treat left on employees’ desks a few days later. The most well thought-out ‘treat’ was a batch of fortune cookies concealing mysterious messages about the benefits of saving money. The last Friday before launch culminated in a ‘Feel Good Friday’ which revealed more information about the upcoming programme launch, before roadshows were rolled out to all staff the following week.

Launch day itself went off with a huge bang, with live website demonstrations given to all staff at allotted times. The roadshow room was filled with different bags of Pic’n’Mix sweets featuring the ‘Just-Treats’ logo, and Oyster card holders advertising the website details were handed out to all employees. Anabela Yourell, HR Manager at Just-Eat explained “how important for engagement it was to get everyone excited about the new programme launch.” She added “we’ve got a very young workforce at Just-Eat, and we knew we needed to do something spectacular in order to grab their attention”.

Just-Eat’s employees have already spent thousands through the programme, just two months on from launch. The top five most popular retailers by offer spend so far include Amazon, Expedia and Vodafone, which seem to reflect the preferences of their workforce demographic. However, supermarket offers like ASDA and Sainsbury’s also feature in the top ten, demonstrating how relevant these core discounts are to everyone.

Anabela remarked “It just goes to show how important it is to tailor the offers on the communications to match your employees’ preferences. Asperity’s Communic8 series helped us identify exactly which retailers would appeal to them”.

The Employee Recognition Software Round-Up

admin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:48:54 +0000

By Jennifer King

Incorporating a formalised recognition programme into your talent management initiatives could be the key to preventing good people from leaving your company.

I analysed four cloud (or web) based systems that I think provide innovative functionality for employee recognition along with robust reporting and analytics features to sell the business benefits of recognition programmes.

Rypple is the social performance management platform that Salesforce acquired last year. The system goes beyond recognition functionality with tools for goal setting and project management for teams and individuals. Users can set objectives, see how projects align with the organisation, and track progress. Along the way, anyone can give recognition employees for great work.

Kudos is solely an employee engagement and recognition platform. Employees post “kudos” to the Twitter-like feed stating the reason for the award in 140 characters or less. Awards are given in point increments, which employees can then redeem through an external rewards programme or an in-house rewards system. Managers can also use the system to provide employees with constructive feedback.

Achievers combines rewards and social networking technologies. The peer-to-peer, points-based system encourages open recognition from company leaders, managers and individual contributors. Any employee can recognise another by posting to the news feed, or they can reward each other using their allocated points. Users also have the ability to earn more points by taking actions that have a direct impact on the company’s business objectives. For example, a user can earn points by referring a qualified candidate for an open position or by saving the company money.

Globoforce ties specific manager-approved rewards to a corporate goal or value. Administrators and managers can identify top performers based on reward value and the number of awards. They can also see how their team members give recognition to each other as well as to individuals outside the team, and determine if an employee’s performance value (what he or she is contributing) is aligned with the recognition they’ve received.

Jennifer King is an HR Analyst at Software Advice, a website that reviews and compares HR and workforce management software. See her full analysis on her HR blog.