BNY Mellon rolls out global reward portal in Belgium

EXCLUSIVE: BNY Mellon will roll out its online total reward portal to its 750 employees in Belgium in March.

The portal, which has been developed with provider Xerox, is currently available to the bank’s employees in Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. It has been introduced to engage staff with their total reward package.

The portal was first rolled out in the US at the end of 2010, in the UK in June 2011, and in Ireland and the Netherlands in 2012. Throughout 2013, it will also be rolled out in Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Poland and Singapore.

Paul Lawrance, benefits and reward manager at BNY Mellon, said: “We have to look at each of the countries on their own. What plays well to an audience in the UK might not play well in Belgium, for instance.”

In the UK, for example, the bank previously issued total reward statements to staff before it lauched the total reward portal. Lawrence added: “In the UK, it has been more of a coherent journey, while it is a new product in a lot of other locations. In Belgium, it is a new product.”

BNY Mellon uses a broad framework to communicate with its 40,000 employees across 35 countries. It starts by placing information on its global intranet site so all staff can see what is going on.

“I project manage the roll out and work closely with my colleagues on the ground in each of the locations,” said Lawrance. “They do the work validating that the sites make sense to their audience. We work really closely with local HR to make sure it makes sense to each employee. I can sit here with my UK hat on and it makes perfect sense to me, but I’m not the employee sitting in Brussels.”

The Belgium launch, on 15 March, will use the same communications structure as the UK. Lawrance added: “A couple of weeks before the launch we’ll do an email that says this is coming. Then [staff] will get launch-day communications, including posters on the noticeboard and communications from the executives in Brussels.”