7 Considerations before choosing an employee benefits platform

Let’s face it, there are a lot of employee benefit platforms, packages and providers. This often results in a fear of choosing the wrong one for your business. After all, some are bespoke, some are generic, some focus on high-street discounts, and others focus on your team’s health and wellbeing. 🏃♂️

Like most purchasing decisions, it isn’t easy, and if you’re responsible for sourcing the best employee benefits platform for an entire workforce, it’s important you get it right. Below, we’ve put together our seven considerations you should make before handing over your businesses’ hard-earned cash. 💰

Our considerations are based on the evidence and conversations we regularly have with HR professionals and business leaders. As an employee benefits platform ourselves with a focus on employee health and wellbeing, we know a thing or two about choosing the right employee benefits scheme. 🤔

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#1 Build a people-centric approach to your employee benefits

Starting with what we believe to be the most crucial consideration of any new employee benefits scheme… building a people-centric approach. It’s so important that leaders recognise that employee benefits are offered specifically to improve retention, engagement and job satisfaction in the workplace. ⭐️

An employee benefits platform that doesn’t cater to needs and demands when it comes to incentives for employees is set to fail. Before choosing any employee benefits platform, package or provider, ask exactly what it is employees want from an employee benefits scheme - only then should you move on. 📉

With this range of answers for your team members, you can begin researching employee benefits schemes that you now know your team will appreciate and use. 

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#2 Does your current employee benefits scheme work efficiently?

Although you’re probably reading this because you’re in the market for a new employee benefits platform, there’s something you should do with your current list of incentives… 

Analyse exactly what is and what isn’t working. ❌

In a lot of circumstances, companies shed thousands on new incentives for employees in the pursuit of improved employee retention. For this reason alone, see if there are any insightful patterns that can help you choose your new employee benefits scheme. 

It may be the case that your employees are very in favour of your cycle-to-work scheme, or the lunch and learn you run every Thursday. When you’re researching for a new employee benefits scheme, remember these incentives and bring them up in conversation with any potential benefit provider or platform.  🗓

You may even find this to reveal a much different picture than expected. It may be the case that employees really are using your current benefits. 🔎

Before you depart with your cash, make sure you really do need a new employee benefits platform - or you are unnecessarily spending money that could have been better spent elsewhere. 💸

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#3 Make sure employee wellbeing is at the forefront of your employee benefits platform 😊

Depending on which employee benefits provider you ask, you may receive a different opinion. However, for us, we believe employee wellbeing should be at the forefront of any benefits package. 

When we say employee wellbeing, we refer to health, fitness and mental benefits - sorry coffee-lovers, but your cappuccinos just don’t cut it!

As an employee wellbeing platform, it’s our duty to empower members in health and fitness. It’s what makes us different from many other platforms, and we see employers grow healthier, happier teams with us. 💚

Not only this, but a lot of discount vouchers and high-street gift cards simply go unused in an employee benefits scheme. 

It isn’t that these aren’t attractive benefits, but there’s a lot more research to suggest positive health and wellbeing contributes to improved work productivity, performance and resilience to stress. 

In fact, in a study of 1.8 million employees, across 82,000+ businesses units in 230 independent organisations, strong employee wellbeing was shown to correlate with job satisfaction, customer loyalty, team productivity and profitability. 📊 

Additionally, 89% of employees who reported suffering from mental health issues in another survey, said it affects their working lives. It’s statistics like this that drive us to emphasise employee wellbeing with our own platform. 🚴‍♀️

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#4 Can you have a hands-off approach to your employee benefits scheme? 

One of our customers, Centtrip, told us it’s “a dream to manage” Heka - and that’s exactly what we want to achieve with our employee benefits platform. ⭐️

Unfortunately, a lot of employee benefits providers don’t offer a hands-off approach, and with poor customer service, you’re often left in the dark over the issues you’re facing. The problem with not having a hands-off approach to your employee benefits scheme is that it’s already costing your business to use a provider. ✋

It should, therefore, be in their best interests to avoid using up more of your time in managing the platform - because otherwise, you’re paying in both resources and time. 💸

When you’re researching different employee benefits providers, ensure you have a thorough demo of their features, options, packages and so on. This isn’t something to go into blindly, and getting it right the first time is important, so make sure you’re well educated on how various platforms prevent eating into your day. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself to ensure you’re choosing a hands-off employee benefits platform or provider… 🤔

1. How much of my day will be spent on employee benefits admin?
2. Will my employee benefits scheme be easily accessible for my team?
3. Are there any stages in the process that require my assistance?
4. Does my team easily understand everything involved in the new scheme?
5. What is the customer service set up with my new platform or provider?

Remember, time is money, and if you’re paying out in two ways, your chosen employee benefits package might not be the right choice. 

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#5 Is it a bespoke employee benefits platform or a one-size-fits-all solution?

Moving on to probably one of the biggest issues facing most companies when it comes to choosing the right employee benefits platform, is it a bespoke or one-size-fits-all solution? Unfortunately, a lot of benefits providers offer just a handful of generic incentives that do not support each employees’ needs - impacting the overall success of your new scheme. ❌

As incentives for employees are there to support health and wellbeing, job satisfaction, and employee retention, if you see negative results it could be a red flag of your new provider. 🚩

Yes, it isn’t easy to support each and every employee, as people are different and their idea of happiness and joy looks different depending on who you ask. However, as a leader, you can do everything in your power to ensure there is something for everyone in your team when it comes to choosing an employee benefits platform. 

This is exactly why analysing your current employee package and asking your team what it is they want can help massively. You can quite literally take your findings and compare platforms, packages and providers with one another. 🔎

Here at Heka, our employee wellbeing platform asks members right from the get-go what it is that regularly improves their health and wellbeing. It’s then our platform’s mission to ensure every suggestion among the thousands available supports employee wellbeing on an individual basis. 💪

We love hearing suggestions too, and our wellbeing platform has the option to recommend what partners we should include next. 😊

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#6 Does it offer affordability and accessibility to your new employee benefits scheme?

If you’ve now made a list of potential employee benefits providers, it’s time to consider affordability and accessibility of your new incentives. 🤔

18% of UK employees according to Aviva’s research in 2019, found that there was a substantial lack of information about the benefits available to them. That’s exactly you need to carefully consider accessibility; how easy can employee obtain their benefits and are they knowledgeable on how to gain access to them? 📉

It’s all about making the process simple to navigate. That way, your employee benefits (if they haven’t already) won’t go underutilised in your team. When it comes to affordability, you must ensure that your new employee benefits platform doesn’t break the bank. 🏦

After all, if you’re overspending on employee benefits, you may negatively impact other business operations elsewhere. Sooner or later, this won’t be without its repercussions, and you’ll be left struggling to continue the level of employee benefits without damaging trust and loyalty among your employees.

Before choosing a new employee benefits platform or provider, do the maths and consider only what you can afford. A lot of employee benefits platforms have hidden costs and additional packages that you may be unaware of when choosing their incentives - make sure everything is clear. 🤑

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#7 An employee benefits platform you can build into your work culture

Finally, with your chosen employee benefits platform, it’s important you build your incentives into the company culture. This is something a lot of toxic workplaces simply don’t do. 👀

If you or your leadership team are discouraging employee benefits and your team begins to feel guilty for making use of them, this causes serious damage to culture, trust and loyalty. 🚫

As a leader, you should view employee benefits as just a facet of an overarching strategy to boost employee morale, retention and engagement. Yes, employee benefits schemes play probably the most pivotal role in the above, but without other elements of a happy, healthy working environment, it can quickly deteriorate efforts. 📊

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The only employee benefits package your team needs 💚

Now that we’ve covered the seven considerations to make before choosing your employee benefits platform, here’s what you should know about us here at Heka… ✅

We focus all our efforts on boosting your teams’ health, happiness and wellbeing. There are too many high-street vouchers and discount codes floating around, that we want to focus elsewhere.

Through Heka, members have access to axe-throwing, life coaching, therapy consultations, personal trainers and so much more! 🧘‍♀️

If you’d like to speak with one of our wellbeing experts, book a demo today!

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What should I read next? 📖

• How to be a small business that offers big employee benefits
• Here’s why an “always-on” culture is harming your team
• The ultimate guide to employee benefits in 2022
• Employees would choose these benefits over money

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