Leading organisations are now communicating rewards with the ambition of motivating their people, driving appreciation and supporting decision making.
Think about how much you time and money you spend on your Total Rewards each year – across pay, core benefits, pension contributions, incentive plans, wellbeing initiatives, development opportunities, and the broader experience you offer at work. The effort that’s involved in administering your benefits and pension schemes.
Now think about how much effort goes into ensuring that employees appreciate and take control of everything they are offered by your organisation. For many companies, the lack of focus here creates a disconnect between the cost of providing reward programmes, and the perceived value of these programmes to employees. It also leads to employees not using their rewards effectively – think of the number of employees who don’t take advantage of matched pension contributions.
Traditionally, the approach to increasing the perceived value of Total Rewards was to issue a Total Rewards Statement – an annual letter posted to the houses of employees each year – which quantified the cost of each element of the rewards package and aimed to tell an employee, “Look how expensive you are”.
This approach has key limitations:
“Life is expensive. There are a lot of benefits that I may have taken for granted. No longer!!”
Employee at JetBlue
Now, organisations are modernising their approach to communicating Total Rewards, creating an online experience aimed at changing behaviour. Willis Towers Watson’s approach is founded on three elements:
8% While three quarters of organisations have technology linked to Total Rewards, only 8% use it well.
Source: 2018 Willis Towers Watson Modernising Total Rewards Survey
JetBlue, a US airline with over 23,000 Crewmembers, wanted to drive more value from its Total Rewards package. It spends over $2 billion each year on Total Rewards programmes, but these were under-utilised and appeared underappreciated.
Previously, JetBlue, like many employers, had sent paper statements to the homes of Crewmembers. These statements were generic, depersonalised and outdated – they helped Crewmembers to see the cost of their rewards in the past year, but did nothing to inspire, drive focus on the future or change behaviour. Wanting to increase appreciation of their array of benefits, JetBlue needed to create an engaging experience.
We worked with the airline to create an online experience that empowered personal decision making and helped Crewmembers to see the value of everything they were offered. Our solution was to create a personalised Total Rewards Experience.
Here’s how their experience changed:
The result? Higher levels of engagement with Total Rewards, increased participation in the pension scheme, and greater utilisation of wellbeing programmes.
The result? Higher levels of engagement with Total Rewards, increased participation in their pension scheme, and greater utilisation of wellbeing programmes.
Employees now engage with their rewards an average of 12 times per year, in contrast to the once-a-year paper Total Rewards Statements they used to receive. Over 1,000 extra employees have enrolled in the pension plan, and over $1.4m extra has been paid in healthy rewards schemes. By creating a personalised Total Rewards Experience, JetBlue have been able to drive appreciation and engagement.
Find out more about creating a Total Rewards Experience at your organisation by requesting a demo here.
