Recession? Bull market? Flex work? Remote? Gig? Employers must adjust their employee playbooks with every economic cycle and workplace shift.
Maintaining and enhancing employee engagement during and following these disruptions can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Employers who communicate with their employees in a personalized way through the lens of total rewards have a distinct advantage over their competitors.
Learn actionable tactics that work in our recently-published eBook.
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| Title | File Type | File Size |
|---|---|---|
| How to improve your employee experience | 4.9 MB |
Let’s start with pay, because every employee does
Colorado was the first state to pass pay transparency laws in 2021. California, Washington and New York followed suit, and in 2023 many employers will have to disclose pay ranges in job postings in these states.
This presents a challenge to all employers. With this information now in the public domain, even employers without employees in these states are impacted. Employees routinely search for jobs like their own to assess “pay fairness.” And while most employees don’t factor in cost-of-living adjustments for different locations or the supply and demand of skilled workers in those locations, employers must be prepared to manage employee expectations when asked.
You can do this by clearly communicating your compensation philosophy and how it connects to your overall total rewards value proposition. For most employers, base pay is only one element to compare against other markets. There could be variable pay opportunities such as shift differential and overtime, short-term incentive plans and long-term incentives that round out the total opportunity to earn within your organization. These details aren’t included in job postings but should be a central part of your employee compensation communications program.Savvy employers will proactively develop individualized total rewards communications showing each employee his or her base and variable pay values and how they fit within the employee's salary band structure.
Savvy employers will proactively develop individualized total rewards communications showing each employee his or her base and variable pay values and how they fit within the employee's salary band structure. This clarity builds trust within the organization and clearly demonstrates fair pay practices. Those same employers will also prepare their managers to have candid conversations about base pay with their direct reports. By doing this, managers can guide each employee toward ways to develop new competencies that will benefit both the employee and the organization and how those new competencies factor into pay increases. Providing managers with consistent messaging is the foundation for building trust in leadership.
Shift focus from benefit costs to the value they provide
More and more, employees are turning to their employers for help and support with their benefits. In fact, benefits play an increasingly important role in employee decisions to stay or leave their organization. According to WTW’s 2022 Global Benefits Attitudes Survey, employees want health and retirement security from their employers. In many countries, the importance of health and retirement benefits as attraction and retention tools has reached a 10- year high. Flexible work arrangements are also an essential consideration for employees weighing job options.
In our analysis of employee benefit priorities, the survey found the most important benefit employees want their employers to focus on is retirement (44%) followed by flexible work (39%). Within the group of employees who rated flexible work as an important benefit for employers to focus on, half (50%) want more generous paid time off and sick leave, 47% desire work from anywhere/remote work options, and 45% prefer the option to determine when they work. Managing employee health also emerged as an important issue among a third of respondents (33%).
For decades, employers have communicated the value of total rewards by highlighting the overall cost to employees as “the hidden paycheck.” That method worked successfully, but it only tells part of the story. Not every benefit program has an employer cost, and not every program can be quantified individually. In addition to cost, employers need to communicate how benefit programs support employee needs and offer suggestions on optimizing their total rewards.
For example, JetBlue created an online total rewards experience that empowered crew members' personal decision making. Instead of presenting crew members with a list of numbers outlining how much each of their benefits cost, employees were given the ability to optimize their total rewards and derive value through the experience. Data-driven personalization allowed JetBlue to show its crew members how much they could get by taking advantage of different programs.
To communicate the value of benefit programs, combine relevant content into one solution. Otherwise, you're only telling part of the story.
44%
of employees want their employers to focus on retirement
Focus on career
The value of career-building opportunities cannot be overlooked as part of each employee’s total rewards. While pay and benefits play a critical role in keeping employees engaged, there will be a time when employees desire more. As they test the market, they will find other employers that can offer similar if not better pay and benefits.
The question is, How do you position career growth within your total rewards framework?
Developing robust, equitable mentorship programs, and other career programs, and then communicating them to employees plays a significant role in today’s most attractive total rewards programs.
Weave wellbeing into the fabric of your employee experience
Financial, physical, social and emotional wellbeing are fundamental to your total rewards program. If you have financial health but not physical wellbeing, what good does that do you? If you have physical health but your social and emotional needs are not met, then how can you be productive? Wellbeing programs help employees get the most out of themselves, and communicating about wellbeing as part of your total rewards communications helps employees get the most out of your company-sponsored programs.
Financial and physical wellbeing opportunities are the obvious connections to total rewards programs and embedded communications. However, employers can also support diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the context of total rewards.
How can employees be at their best if they can’t be themselves at work or aren’t appreciated for who they are and the unique perspective they bring? Many organizations offer access to employee resource groups, support partners, third-party vendors and volunteer opportunities, and they’re usually right at employees’ fingertips.
But do employees know these resources exist? Do they know how to get involved? Can they connect these programs to the organization’s underlying principle of recognizing the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in employees’ day-to-day work? Communicating these resources as fundamental values and positioning them within the total rewards program shows that the organization celebrates and is committed to equality and diversity.
Create a total rewards experience with personalization
Organizations commonly describe what they're trying to achieve in communicating about their total rewards programs:
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Raise awareness and appreciation of their total rewards programs
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Highlight lost opportunities
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Expose the hidden value of their programs
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Increase employee engagement
Before and after
Measuring ROI of your communication efforts doesn't have to be hard
Effectively communicating your total rewards programs delivers both tangible and intangible benefits.
Tangible ROI
Improved engagement and participation in your wellbeing programsBelow, we’ve outlined several ways personalized total rewards communication can affect employee wellbeing efforts. Measurable results can be identified by collecting data before and after the launch of your communication campaign.
Financial wellbeing- Increased employee savings plan contributions
- Increased health savings account/flexible spending account/dependent care reimbursement account contributions
- Increased usage of financial planning resources
- Increased usage of health coaching sessions
- Increased utilization of employee assistance plans
- Decreased unplanned absences
- Increased participation in wellbeing challenges
- Increased engagement in annual physical questionnaires and programs
- Increased participation in company-sponsored volunteer events
- Increased participation in diversity and inclusion networks
You can also add a diversity, equity and inclusion angle to your measurement efforts to understand whether your benefit and wellbeing programs are meeting the needs of your diverse workforce segments. For example, your goals may be to increase participation in your defined contribution plan among lower-paid or underrepresented employees versus overall participation metrics.
Cutting costs related to employee productivity, marketing, HR and employee retention are also priorities for organizations. Consider how a personalized total rewards experience can help you address these issues as well. For example:
Increased productivity
How long do employees spend searching for their personal information within your network of vendors? Let’s assume your personalized total rewards communications saved each employee 10 minutes per week by providing readily available information accessed by a one-login experience. Assuming an annual salary of $62,500 ($30/ hour), 10 minutes per week = $260 in estimated savings per employee per year.
25%Reduced print distribution costsreduction in calls to the service center as employees are better enabled to handle employee self-service
Instead of printing and mailing information to employees’ homes, give them access to a central digital communication platform. Cost savings from eliminating printed publications adds up. Let’s assume $10,000 to print 5,000 brochures and $2.75 in postage per mailing. That equals $23,750 in estimated annual savings ($10,000 printing + $13,750 mailing costs). In this scenario, a personalized total rewards experience replaces printing and mailing a benefits brochure to 5,000 employees and saves the organization $23,750. Think of the savings accrued when you can make quick online changes instead of printing updated versions.
Reduced calls to your HR service center
By personalizing total rewards communications, organizations may realize as much as a 25% reduction in calls to the service center as employees are better enabled to handle employee self-service. In the following scenario, an HR service center that received 45,000 calls per year realized significantly fewer calls. Total call volume = 45,000 calls per year, with 93% first call resolution = 41,850 calls per year 25% × 41,850 × average help time of 6.25 minutes = 1,089 hours of estimated customer service representative time saved per year.
Improved employee retention
The savings are significant if an improved total rewards experience convinces just 10 employees to stay when they might otherwise have considered looking for a new job. Let’s assume $1,768 internal recruiting costs + $789 external recruiting costs × 10 hires = $25,570 on recruiting costs alone, not including savings from lost productivity.
Intangible ROI
Improving the employee experience yields benefits far beyond the financial. Spend some time thinking about how these changes will affect the overall organization.
For example, you could:
- Develop a more engaged workforce
- Nurture greater employee loyalty
- Create an inclusive environment
- Become a more competitive employer
- Reduce attrition
- Lower absenteeism
While difficult to measure, becoming an employer of choice and developing a culture of wellbeing, diversity and inclusion are powerful strategies to attract, engage and retain the best talent now and into the future.
