Employee benefits first, online benefits portal next? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Easter’s on its way so we need an early egg pun. Which do you invest in first – employee benefits, or the technology that delivers them? The chicken or the egg?
It’s a reward professional’s dilemma. Should you offer fabulous employee benefits, then put them online? Or invest in an employee benefits platform first, and then build your benefits offering?
There’s no doubt that employee benefits need to be fit for purpose – exciting, current, and suited to your employee demographic. This makes you attractive as an employer and likely to entice the best candidates.
On the other hand, if your employees don’t know where to find their benefits (or even that they exist), and you have a mountain of paperwork to wade through every time someone signs up, then technology is the answer. It will save you hours of administrative time and showcase the benefits you already have to their best advantage.
In fact, it’s not that clear which should come first, because a host of factors come into play. Benefits chicken or technology egg? It depends on the organisation – there’s probably no ‘one size fits all’ solution.
Coming off the (chicken coup?) fence
That said, we’re going to come down off the fence and say what we believe works best. If you don’t have an employee benefits platform and you ask your people today what they love or hate about their benefits, the truth is they may not know. Many won’t be engaged enough to give you an informed answer.
Why? Because offline employee benefits tend to remain hidden.
This means that putting effort into improving your benefits offering could be a waste of time and money. There’s a real danger that your employees just won’t appreciate all the hard work involved.
Employee experience comes first
Countless examples have convinced us that if you use employee benefits technology to create a better employee experience first, and THEN improve your benefits offering, your efforts will be rewarded.
Many more people will appreciate what you’ve done for them and engage with their benefits the way you want them to.
Why? Because a digital online employee benefits platform is the perfect showcase for your employee benefits scheme.
You don’t need to have many products to launch an employee benefits platform. Some businesses have only two or three. You can start small if you need to, but the infrastructure is there to keep growing your benefits offering into the future.
Of course, it’s just our view. If you aren’t sure whether the chicken or the egg is the right approach for your organisation, then please get in touch and let’s see how we can help. Either way, PES has the market knowledge, broking skills and technical expertise to create the right employee benefits scheme for you – whatever the pecking order.
About PES
Delivering a great employee experience is a challenge for growing organisations. At PES, it’s what we do. Our online employee benefits platform, HR support and workplace wellbeing services bring out the best in your employees – enabling your business to thrive.
Call us on 01454 808658, email us at hello@wearepes.co.uk or fill in our enquiry form.
