Centrica puts its flexible benefits scheme online

Centrica has launched an intranet site which it will use to promote its flexible benefits package to its 30,000 employees and boost take-up of perks. The energy supplier had experienced problems with with the number of employees choosing to take their flex fund as cash, rather than spending it on benefits.

Liz Dixon, reward programme manager, said: “They are missing out and it is a big part of our job to make sure these people are making informed choices. We have a good benefits package but I don’t feel that we’re getting the most out of it. Our staff don’t know what they can get just from being an employee.”

The new site is also intended to build a single brand for its benefits schemes. “The key thing in the new year will be to get all benefits in one place and start to think about the way we actually communicate them through brands to try to get an emotional attachment,” said Dixon.

Although the intranet site will not reach all employees, Dixon added that it is a step in the right direction. “I’m thinking of our door-to-door employees who are not in the office, and we will have to get the message to them in other ways, but this is a starting block for us,” she said.

Centrica is also looking at introducing tax-efficient benefits next year, as well as offering free financial education to call centre-based employees.

Dixon says this should appeal to call centre employees whose “flex pots never seem to be that huge so they may feel like there is nothing in there for them”.