Engagement surveys measure benefits ROI

Groupon and Virgin Media are measuring the return on investment (ROI) of their benefits package with employee engagement surveys.

The organisations shared the background around these surveys in a session at Employee Benefits Live on 25 September.

Groupon has an annual engagement survey called Pulse, as well as monthly focus groups for staff to discuss what is working and what is not working in its benefits provision.

Hailey Wojcik, HR director for Northern Europe at Groupon, said: “When employees are engaged with the process, they will be engaged with the business and the benefits programmes that are rolled out.”

Wojcik added that it is important to understand the internal factors that might affect benefits, such as the age demographic of employees or a de-centralised workforce.

“One size does not fit all,” she said. “Use varied and innovative ways to reach staff.”

Speaking in the same session, Emily Scammell, employee insight and engagement manager at Virgin Media, detailed the telecommunications firm’s Heartbeat engagement survey. The 2011 survey had a response rate of 90%.

In its 2012 survey, which is currently underway, Virgin Media is looking at whether financial incentives lead to greater engagement with staff, in particular those who participate in its sharesave scheme and performance-related pay.

The company is also using online collaboration tools to enhance and measure its benefits’ return on investment. These include: Shout, an online peer-to-peer recognition scheme; its Heartbeat engagement survey; Web-X, its online video communications facility; and Quad, which is being developed to create an online community.

Scammell said: “We want to promote interactions internally that have never happened before.”

These online tools are all aimed at targeting a diverse workforce, which includes office- and field-based staff, a wide range of age demographics, and a variety of legacy employees.