As our Future of Work Week, in association with Aon, draws to a close, it is time to reflect on some of the trends and issues currently shaping employers’ strategies in this area.
Ensuring benefits provisions are fit for the future has long been on the agenda for many employers. However, since the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic began, organisations and their workforces have faced a number of unprecedented challenges that they could never have foreseen.
As a result, employees’ needs and priorities have clearly shifted, leading to employers’ provisions evolving too. Some of the most valued staff benefits now include those relating to mental health and wellbeing, healthcare schemes in general, financial wellbeing and hardship loans.
This has caused employers to look again at their reward and benefits strategies, and focus on how they can best support staff in the current climate. Some have made major changes to their benefits schemes and are also looking at how they can be better prepared to adapt to any future challenges that may arise. For example, with regards to healthcare, some organisations are looking at whether long-Covid conditions should be incorporated into their health and wellbeing strategies.
What must also be considered is how the pandemic has, and may continue to, affect employee engagement. This is likely to be a key concern for employers throughout 2021 as many workforces continue to work remotely, in some cases while also struggling to juggle childcare commitments. It is, therefore, important that engagement strategies are revisited as employees’ needs change.
So wherever you are with revising strategies at your organisation, Future of Work Week was designed to help you take this to the next level through exclusive insights and opinions uncovering best practice in this area. These included:
- What employee engagement challenges do employers face in 2021 and beyond?
- Gamesys increased engagement techniques in response to 2020 lockdowns
- Can employers can truly future-proof a benefits strategy?
- Reinventing benefits: Future of Work in numbers
- University of Lincoln adapts benefits strategy in order to provide valued rewards
- How can employers incorporate long Covid into health and wellbeing strategies?
- Susan Gee: Yorkshire Water has support in place for employees with long Covid
- Colin Barnes: Employee benefits: Adapting to the future of work, today
- Ksenia Zheltoukhova: 2021 could bring an opportunity to reset benefits strategies Shalina Crossley: Employers need to be aware of how to support staff with long Covid
Kavitha Sivasubramaniam
Editor
Tweet: @kavithasiva_EB