"While employee-to-employee communication is a vital part of the utilisation jigsaw, employers should never become complacent and should always have a strategy in place to encourage take-up."
- Katharine Moxham, Spokesperson for GRiD
Of those surveyed (500), 18% expect staff to initiate conversations about employee benefits themselves instead of receiving active encouragement to use the benefits made available to them. Group Risk Development (GRiD) highlights the potential waste of time & resources in benefit investment if utilisation isn’t encouraged.
Since employee benefits are often used as a point of differentiation in recruitment strategies, GRiD warns employers that staff can be let down if that enthusiasm isn’t extended beyond the onboarding process.
The industry body believes that when employees are left to their own devices to sign up for benefits, they’re less likely to understand what’s on offer, and therefore less likely to invest.
“Getting the right benefits for staff is a huge investment for any company, so it doesn’t make any sense that a fifth of employers seem to be letting them gather dust on a shelf, metaphorically speaking,” explained Katharine Moxham, Spokesperson for GRiD.
She said: “In the event of budget constraints, any employee benefit that has low take-up rates is at risk of being dropped, which is such a loss to employees but also to HR teams who’ll have worked hard to set out the case for benefits in the first place.
“Encouragingly, the take-up of employee benefits is a virtuous circle as employees who have a positive experience will also start to communicate the advantages with colleagues. While employee-to-employee communication is a vital part of the utilisation jigsaw, employers should never become complacent and should always have a strategy in place to encourage take-up,” Katharine concluded.
