What does good M.I. look like?

Realtime, online, detailed management information (MI) or take-up and use of your employee benefits – surely an essential tool for measuring the impact and value of a programme.

Good news for employees then but maybe one of the reasons providers have been slow to offer a robust and significant level of detail to their HR clients is because the results might not show their product in a very good light. It’s something of a dichotomy; don’t provide MI in which clients have confidence and easy access thereby leaving an internal vacuum or provide it and risk shooting your scheme through the heart? If seeing is believing, then seeing MI that demonstrates unsatisfactory engagement levels with a employee benefits programme is knowing it isn’t working.

Possible explanations
Taking an employee discounts scheme as an example, if participation figures are low, it could be that the scheme isn’t attractive – not enough relevant offers. Or it could be that the communication isn’t right, employees don’t know about it, or awareness levels are very low, confined to an annual mention. Or, worst of all worlds, a bit of both – a poorly designed scheme which is badly implemented.

Is ignorance bliss?
There is a fleeting attraction to the ‘don’t measure it, don’t have to manage it’ argument for employers. They can tick the discounts box without being troubled by whether it’s delivering employer value. Lack of MI will also suit some employee benefits providers because if clients don’t know, they don’t know it’s not working. Give them unfettered, unedited access to MI whenever they want it and who knows what assumptions they might start making!

Taking the risk
A discounts scheme which gives open access to clients- so much more telling than the provider generated MI report – is undoubtedly putting its information where its mouth is. Providers who offer open MI know that the right scheme, properly implemented and communicated will deliver the right figures. No more ‘trust us, we’re benefits providers’.

What MI do you need?

In order to get the most out of a discount scheme, you need to be able to track how effective the scheme is currently. This means the availability of effective, coherent and transparent management information, i.e. accessible and relevant statistics, including:

• number of employees engaged
• number of logins per user
• email communications statistics
• number of offers viewed
• number of actual completed transactions
• total amount of employee spend
• total savings

This helps employers in two key ways:

1. Employee involvement = Employer value for money
Management information allows targeting of the benefits scheme to do exactly what it is designed to do- provide employees with discounted services and products. Without regular updates and statistics to see how best the scheme can be tailored then money is being spent on a scheme which is not working to its full ability.

2. Employee satisfaction
Repeated transactions and regular use are a good indicator of employee satisfaction with your benefits system and don’t forget the old truism – even if they don’t use it, employees want a scheme.

Are there any downsides to having this information?
Employers can include information about the sale of their own discounted products and services which have been integrated within the scheme. If interest is low, it could suggest to the employer that belief in their product within their company was also low.

For providers, the risk is that the MI will show their product in an unreliable light. But this gives the opportunity for provider and employer to work together on increasing employee engagement, providing the scheme is well-designed and relevant and the provider has the communications expertise.