Employee engagement

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Employee engagement: an overview

Employee engagement: flexible benefits

Employee engagement: healthcare
Sponsor’s comment: Staff aching for wellness schemes

Employee engagement: total reward

Employee Engagement: pensions
Sponsor’s comment: Pensions need a keen specialist eye

Employee engagement: company cars
Sponsor’s comment: Reverse declining take-up of fleet perks

Employee engagement: financial education

Employee engagement; rehabilitation
Sponsor’s comment: Provider proximity is key to staff rehabilitation planning

Employee engagement: share schemes
Sponsor’s comment: Share plans give edge to staff performance

Employee engagement: performance-related pay
Sponsor’s comment: Performance link with engagement grows

Editor’s comment:

Engaging employees with the strategic goals and values of an organisation so that their behaviour and performance is driven by these factors is a complicated business. Benefits can, however, play their part.

According to the results of Employee Benefits/JPMorgan INVEST Benefits Research 2007, almost two-thirds of respondents believed that their benefits strategy, to some extent, engages staff in the organisation. The same proportion felt that their benefits strategy also helped with staff motivation and productivity to some extent. While a third of respondents said that their benefits strategy has a significant impact on recruitment and retention.

When it comes to individual perks, a good pension will certainly be on the shopping list of job hunters, while an all-employee share scheme may encourage them to stay. The latter, as well as performance-related pay, may have a positive influence on employee productivity. Even flexible benefits can play a role in influencing employee behaviour by offering options that represent the values of the business. And rehabilitation services provided through group risk benefits can help re-engage staff who have been on long-term sick leave back into the workplace.

However, benefits practitioners have to work hard to make sure that these benefits are not taken for granted or even forgotten about. Boosting engagement levels in individual perks is an on-going and sometimes difficult task. Communication of benefits through total reward statements, benefits fairs, modelling tools, line managers and promotions for flexible benefits schemes can all help. Hopefully this supplement will prove useful by not only explaining the power of individual benefits to engage staff with an organisation, but also how to boost levels of interest in those perks.

Amanda Wilkinson, Editor