benef its connectionInsight, strategy and best practice in employee benefits from Asperity

ISSUE 14 / DECEMBER 2011

Also in this issue:

• What does good M.I. look like? • 5 Ingredients for a successful benefits scheme

• Case Study: Signet

SMAll fISh RUlE thE ponD Why SMEs have neverhad benefits so good

Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are often talked about as being in danger, of not getting enough governmental support and getting trampled on by the big corporates. The use of the SME label itself can sometimes bear negative connotations, particularly if the person or company using the label is trying to sell to them - why would they want

to sell to a small business when they can sell to a multi-national with a billion-pound turnover?

David Cameron and his cronies seem to be trying to drum up support for small businesses - after all, these companies employ almost 60% of the private sector workforce and contribute to around 49% of UK turnover. Whether Cameron is simply paying lip service or not, it has become clear in recent years that support is certainly needed. This top-down message may well permeate through our society and have a positive effect on SMEs, but this is something we’ll have to ‘watch this space’ for.

But a good business doesn’t wait around for things to happen to it, and any business that sits on its laurels waiting for the government to help them out of a tricky spot is unlikely to make it out of this economic downturn alive. The small businesses that will prevail are the ones that aren’t afraid to try something new and are willing to adapt to various business demands. Reward and benefits play a vital role here, but because of various constraints placed on them, SMEs often have to sideline their development in this area. But, as you’ll find in our cover story, there is an answer - it’s time to stop playing the victim and get a benefits system in place that rivals the big boys.

Glenn ElliottMD, Asperity Employee Benef itsglenn@asperity.co.uk

WElCoME ContEntSbenef itsconnection

Contents and Editorial 2.

Psst… we’ve got a secret! 3.

Small fish rule the pond 4.

What does good M.I. look like? 6.

5 ingredients for a successful benefits scheme 8.

Case Study: Signet 10.

Visit www.asperity.co.uk for more information and free, fully functional demo access to Reward Gateway.

All information correct at the time of writing and subject to change without notice.

Asperity Employee Benef its Ltd, 90 Westbourne Grove,London, W2 5RT. Tel 020 7229 0349www.asperity.co.ukemail: benef its@asperity.co.uk

© Asperity Employee Benef its Ltd 2011.

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By Ross Musgrove

pSSt. . . WE’vE Got A SECREt!

As Asperity gets ready to launch the UK’s first truly private sale site,we take a look at the concept of the ‘secret sale’ in more detail.

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There are several consumer-facing secret, or private, sale sites in Europe. The first, Vente Privée, was launched by a group of French entrepreneurs in 2001. The consumer-facing private sale is used as a platform for brands to quickly sell old stock, without harming their brand’s image or competing with other distribution channels. Consumer-facing private sale sites all suffer the same issues. Items are usually end of line, which means rather than negotiating a discount that will benefit the consumer, the brand offers a discount to seduce the consumer into buying something they don’t really need. Sales are typically really short, ranging from 24 hours up to 4 days (or until everything is sold). This is because end of line stock is in limited supply and, once it’s all been sold, there’s no motivation on the brand’s part to source anymore. Both of these issues are underpinned by what is arguably the biggest issue - consumer-facing private sales sites aren’t private at all. Anyone can join, for free. Even the sites that claim to be invitation only aren’t actually private. The consumer simply requests an invitation to join. Moreover, UK private sales brands are actively trying to recruit new members - even by advertising on national television! That doesn’t seem very private to us, so we’ve decided to offer a better solution.

SecretSale™ is a brand new offering from Asperity, bringing together the best, exclusive discounts on a range of fantastic products. the huge discounts come from negotiating directly with brands, cutting out the middle-men to ensure the best possible deal. Each SecretSale™ features up to twelve product ranges including many exclusive brands that don’t discount to consumers. Savings of up to 70% on retail prices are available from brands including Le Creuset (up to 41% discount), Trunki (up to 56% discount) and Rotary (up to 56% off). Each sale goes live on Monday morning and runs for a full 7 days (or until items are sold out).

SecretSale™ is the UK’s first truly private sale site. Only Reward Gateway users can access SecretSale™, and only your employees have access to Reward Gateway. This puts our SecretSale™ buyers in the position of power when negotiating discounts with brands. Our audience is a strictly controlled closed-user group, which means, rather than accepting a discount on end of line stock to offload to your employees, we can negotiate significant savings on the things people want and need. And, as there isn’t such a limited supply of stock, each SecretSale™ runs for seven days. Giving each of your employees the opportunity to take advantage. Ross Musgrove is the Head of Partnerships for Asperity Employee Benefits. Comments or questions? Send them to ross.musgrove@asperity.co.uk

Anyone who’s ever worked or run a small to medium sized enterprise (SME) will know that we sometimes get forgotten or pushed aside in the wider business or financial arena.

Sure, we don’t have a legal team or a ten-person department dedicated to ordering stationery, but does that make us less important in the business world? I often wonder whether just the use of the label ‘SME’ is sometimes used as a synonym for ‘second class business’. I am what you might call an SME crusader. These companies employ almost 60% of the private sector workforce and contribute to around 49% of UK turnover. Not so inconsequential now, you might think. And it’s not easy, supporting such a large part of our economy. SMEs invariably face a unique set of challenges that bigger companies just don’t understand: time constraints, communication issues, business development pressures. And, of course, the age-old challenge of effective staffing. All of this, whilst constantly needing to adapt to external or internal change. In the midst of a global downturn, I would argue that the staffing issue - and by that I primarily mean finding and retaining good staff - is one of the most crucial for SMEs.

A friend of mine is a Regional Director for a small chain of Health and Fitness Clubs in the South East. On a recent visit to one of the clubs, I found him in the reception, sleeves rolled up, mop in one hand and bucket in the other. Not the supervisory, managerial position I’d expected to see him in. As he carefully positioned the ‘slippery when wet’ sign, he laughed off my quip about leading by example. We’ve all been there; a unique feature of an SME is the culture of mucking in - none of this ‘well that’s not my job’ attitude that you might find in a larger business.

In addition to these SME-specific challenges, we also face the same challenges large corporations do - but generally without the same layers of support. So as we trundle through, adapting to and overcoming the myriad of business demands, we need to think about where HR falls into the bigger picture.

Strategies around staff retention - which may include training, development, pay and benefits - often fall to the bottom of the pile as they can be seen as less critical and not a direct link to profit. Yet, your staff are the single most important asset you have. Bill Gates, former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft once said: “Take away my 20 best people and virtually overnight Microsoft becomes a mediocre company”. Message: invest in your staff, and your business will shine.

Benefits has a crucial role to play in retaining good staff and yet, according to a survey run by Oval Financial Services, 75% of staff in small businesses don’t understand the benefits available to them. Without the luxury of a whole benefits team, but rather an HR Officer that has many responsibilities within their remit, how can you effectively show your staff you care with the limited time and resource you have available? One of the most powerful and cost effective ways to show your employees that you appreciate them, and encourage retention as a result, is by creating a user-friendly, well-communicated benefits package, that all your staff can engage with and that delivers real value for your staff. In my view, an engaged workforce is one that will invariably see you through any tough times the business may encounter.

A smaller workforce shouldn’t mean compromising on the quality of your benefits programme. Beware of the ‘bronze’, ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ packages that incrementally reduce the quality of the product the lower you go (just because you have less employees!). Instead, look for a provider that offers you the same level of product quality and same high standards of service that the bigger organisations receive. At the same time, your provider needs to recognise the challenges an SME faces and go out of their way to ensure your staff are engaged with their benefits. And last but not least, your provider should make your benefits scheme hassle-free so that you can concentrate on other areas of the business.

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SMAll fISh RUlE thE ponD Why SMEs have never had benefits so good

By Shelley Packer

Benefits has a crucial role to play in retaining good staff.

An engaged workforce is one that will invariably see you through any tough times the business may encounter.

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Practically speaking then, your checklist should something like this: • All your benefits in one place - that means local offers you have, pension schemes and anything else you’re offering to staff.

• An easy to access programme - online with a single login, no fuss, simple and straightforward.

• One point of contact - that really means one person to call when you need answers about anything from Management Information, Childcare Vouchers or the colour scheme on your programme’s website.

• An effective communications strategy - bespoke to your workforce and planned for you in advance so all the work required to make your benefits programme shine is taken care of for you. If you find a benefits service that satisfies all the above then you are on to a good thing. Asperity is a small business too, and we make sure our SME clients receive the same high standards of product and service as our larger clients do. And we’ve got over 200 SME clients to prove it. Talk to us today to see how we can engage your workforce and help keep your business successful. Until then, we’ll see you on the flip side. Shelley Packer heads up the Asperity360 team, a unit dedicated to servicing the SME market. Comments or questions? Send them to shelley@asperity.co.uk

By George Farrow

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WhAt DoES GooD M.I.looK lIKE?

Realtime, online, detailed management information (MI) or take-up and use of your employee benefits - surely an essential tool for measuring the impact and value of a scheme.

Good news for employees then but maybe one of the reasons providers have been slow to offer a robust and significant level of detail to their HR clients is because the results might not show their product in a very good light. It’s something of a dichotomy; don’t provide MI in which clients have confidence and easy access thereby leaving an internal vacuum or provide it and risk shooting your scheme through the heart? If seeing is believing, then seeing MI that demonstrates unsatisfactory engagement levels with a employee benefits programme is knowing it isn’t working.

possible explanations

Taking an employee discounts scheme as an example, if participation figures are low, it could be that the scheme isn’t attractive - not enough relevant offers. Or it could be that the communication isn’t right, employees don’t know about it, or awareness levels are very low, confined to an annual mention. Or, worst of all worlds, a bit of both - a poorly designed scheme which is badly implemented.

Is ignorance bliss?

There is a fleeting attraction to the “don’t measure it, don’t have to manage it” argument for employers. They can tick the discounts box without being troubled by whether it’s delivering employer value.

Lack of MI will also suit some employee benefits providers because if clients don’t know, they don’t know it’s not working. Give them unfettered, unedited access to MI whenever they want it and who knows what assumptions they might start making!

taking the riskA discounts scheme which gives open access to clients- so much more telling than the provider generated MI report - is undoubtedly putting its information where its mouth is.

Providers who offer open MI know that the right scheme, properly implemented and communicated will deliver the right figures. No more “trust us, we’re benefits providers”.

What MI do you need?

In order to get the most out of a discount scheme, you need to be able to track how effective the scheme is currently. This means the availability of effective, coherent and transparent management information, i.e. accessible and relevant statistics, including:

• number of employees engaged

• number of logins per user

• email communications statistics

• number of offers viewed

• number of actual completed transactions

• total amount of employee spend

• total savings

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this helps employers in two key ways:

1. Employee involvement = Employer value for money

Management information allows targeting of the benefits scheme to do exactly what it is designed to do- provide employees with discounted services and products. Without regular updates and statistics to see how best the scheme can be tailored then money is being spent on a scheme which is not working to its full ability.

2. Employee satisfaction

Repeated transactions and regular use are a good indicator of employee satisfaction with your benefits system and don’t forget the old truism - even if they don’t use it, employees want a scheme.

Are there any downsides to having this information?

Employers can include information about the sale of their own discounted products and services which have been integrated within the scheme. If interest is low, it could suggest to the employer that belief in their product within their company was also low.

For providers, the risk is that the MI will show their product in an unreliable light. But this gives the opportunity for provider and employer to work together on increasing employee engagement, providing the scheme is well-designed and relevant and the provider has the communications expertise. George Farrow is Asperity’s Client Services Director. Comments or questions? Send them to george@asperity.co.uk

5 InGREDIEntS foR A SUCCESSfUl EMploYEE BEnEfItS SChEME

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By Leanne Broadbent

like any endeavour, there is no single magic formula for guaranteeing successful employee benefits programmes. But the most dynamic are characterised by hR teams focusing on one or two key enablers and pursuing them relentlessly. We highlight here some very vibrant schemes in a diverse cross-section of clients.

visible senior commitment to building benefits-orientated communities

One HR Director recorded a video introducing staff to the scheme, giving a personal tour and lending his authority to the programme. This video received 31,000 views in six weeks. This employer’s Rewards Community hosts video interviews where staff share savings tips winning an incentive for each story published. And the Twitter Group publicises new benefits in line with the corporate goal of making new technologies core to the business.

Engaging your Account Manager

Account managers should live and breathe the reward service seven days a week. Between them, they should know everything there is to know about what works and what doesn’t in voluntary benefits. As avid personal users of the scheme themselves, it would pain them to think that employees might be missing out on easily achievable savings potentially running up to £1,000 per annum per employee. We recognise that perhaps some employers see the provision of employee benefits as just ticking another to-do list box. Get the project implemented and then move onto something else. But for those HR Managers that really want to push benefits boundaries, account managers can provide much invaluable support.

Content, content, content.

You can take employees to a benefits scheme but you can’t make them use it unless the offers are relevant and real. All your good work as an employer in raising awareness of discounts will come to grief if your employees are disappointed when they get there. You need style and substance, communications and content, breadth and depth of offers. The pay off is the very significant return on your investment.

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You need style and substance, communications and content, breadth and depth of offers. the pay off is the very significant return on your investment.

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Deploying product champions

Scheme success requires engagement at every level and particularly from line managers outside the HR department. We call them product champions and two employers in particular have recognised their value and invested time and money in getting them involved. A client with hundreds of locations, each with under 20 staff, has focused on champions to back up engagement competitions with points based schemes. These result in prizes for the area or divisional managers whose teams have achieved the highest level of participation by their direct reports. There is no doubt that, a twin track approach of motivating managers and employees has been responsible for significant improvements in engagement, in this case an astonishing 111% increase in three months.

Ensuring communications reach employees outside of head office

A major retailer recognised that a poster on an office noticeboard is, on its own, too passive to drive engagement. Their retail till system is used by all outlet staff and through it a survey was conducted on internet use at home among retail employees who do not have internet access at work. £1 was donated to their Charitable Trust for each completed survey and there was an astonishing participation rate of 33% revealing that up to 90% of staff shopped online. In a different organisation with staff based overseas as well as in the UK, Google Analytics reports reveal that employees as far away as Uzbekistan use the reward scheme. Whilst the Reward Gateway offer portfolio is limited to the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US, staff abroad have realised that retailers ship overseas and there are still gifts to be bought for family back home.

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Motivating managers and employees has been responsible for significant improvements in engagement, in this case an astonishing 111% increase in three months.

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Signet trading limited is best known for its high street retail brands including h.Samuel, leslie Davis and Ernest Jones When shopping around for a Voluntary Benefits provider early on in 2009, Signet were not just looking for an employee discount provider - they wanted someone who could give their HR function an identity. Asperity proved to be the perfect partner! Asperity have helped Signet to extract maximum value out of its Reward Gateway platform enabling them to showcase not only Asperity provided benefits but their own benefit information too. At the time of launch, there was no central place for Signet employees to find information on all of their benefits. So additional tabs were built in to Reward Gateway allowing Signet to provide information on its own corporate benefits such as life assurance, company car allowances and study aid provisions.

It wasn’t just information that was displayed. Asperity also developed some time saving tools for the HR Team. Any retail business will sympathise with the forever asked question ”How much holiday do I have” and this was true for Signet too. However, Asperity was able to create a Holiday Calculator for Signet to sit on Reward Gateway. The result is that queries to the office have dropped saving them time, while registrations on Reward Gateway have increased - Win:Win! Having a great benefits site is one thing, but for it to be fantastic, people have to know about it and use it. With a predominantly offline workforce in over 550 retail locations across the UK, communication was always going to be a challenge. Employee discounts were new to Signet, so the first task was to create interest, excitement and ultimately engagement. This would require a communications campaign designed to reach each and every employee and the foundation for this was the quarterly newsletter. The impact of this first piece of comms had a real positive impact on registration numbers and continues to do so with registrations increasing by around 30% after each posting.

The power of ‘recommendations’ should never be underestimated so Signet and Asperity together saw an opportunity to capitalise on this by introducing ‘Tell Mel!’ Signet employee, Melanie, was already an avid fan of Reward Gateway and her savings were soon featured in communications. Other employees were encouraged to share their stories with the incentive to win prizes if their story was featured in the Newsletter. The “Tell Mel’ section has proved to be a really valuable tool bringing credibility when showing the type and level of savings available. And it doesn’t stop there, Asperity took over as Signet’s Childcare Voucher provider from January 2011. This is integrated into the heart of the Reward Gateway platform, bringing along improvements such as double the normal rate of discount at a selection of child related retailers and seven day per week Helpdesk!

“the “tell Mel’ section has proved to be a really valuable tool bringing credibility when showing the type and level of savings available.”

Employees

Workforce profile

Highlights

5,600

Retail, predominantly offline workforce

Bespoke tools developedhelp drive traffic andincrease registrations

REAl pEoplE:REAl REWARDS

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“Asperity have helped Signet to extract maximum value out of its Reward Gateway platform enabling them to showcase not only Asperity provided benefits but their own benefit information too.”

Asperity Employee Benefits Ltd90 Westbourne Grove, London W2 5RTt +44 (0)20 7229 0349 f +44 (0)7092 010 022 e benefits@asperity.co.uk www.asperity.co.uk