In an era marked by global challenges, multinational organisations are looking for new ways to align their reward and benefits strategies worldwide. As employees' benefits expectations undergo rapid, widespread transformations, technology and data have become vital in creating cross-border alignment. A recent study found that 79% of CFOs plan to adopt more automated, digital operations to manage increased costs and global economic concerns.
So, what specific tech-driven solutions can companies harness to align their benefits and rewards systems across the globe? Here, we'll reveal four tech-driven strategies to help you maintain cross-border benefits and support your international teams.
1. Digitalising Global Mobility Programmes
Through digitalised global mobility programmes, companies can ensure a seamless and personalised experience for international employees. Managing employee benefits worldwide presents a unique challenge, and while only 35% of organisations currently have digitalised key mobility processes, 76% plan on investing in it within the next five years.
According to Tom Saunders, International Business Development Manager at Benify: “International mobility programmes can create considerable complexity regarding benefits. It can be a compliance minefield, and the potential for things to go wrong or get missed is significant.”
These issues can be solved by digitalising key mobility processes — helping organisations navigate the complexity of these workflows by streamlining their administration through a globally accessible digital system.
2. Individualisation through Benefits Technology
In a rapidly changing workplace landscape, the need for individualised benefits is clearer than ever. A report by Deloitte found that 23% of organisations viewed 'not understanding what's important to employees' as their biggest challenge. Benefits technology can promote individualisation in three key ways:
- Offering greater flexibility to employees regarding which benefits they can use, based on their unique preferences and situations.
- Allowing organisations to communicate personalised reward offerings that are relevant and interesting to each employee.
- Utilising data to evaluate which benefits are used most or least by employees, and then tailoring offerings to fit employees' unique preferences.
A benefits platform allows you to provide employees with the benefits that are relevant to them wherever they are. Go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach: align with employees' changing needs to foster a sense of inclusivity and engagement throughout your organisation.
3. Total Rewards Statements as Compensation Enablers
Setting compensation expectations for globally mobile employees can be difficult. However, through total rewards statements, organisations can address the different approaches to compensation in various countries.
Tom Saunders revealed the importance of a digital rewards statement for international employees: “In some markets around the world, salary can make up less than half of a total reward package. We see a real advantage in using total reward statements as part of the offer letter to visualise the total compensation the employee will receive. Companies can also focus more on cost-to-company statements instead of total rewards in areas such as salary review processes to enable an honest and open discussion regarding a compensation package.”
By integrating total rewards statements, companies can ensure employees have a clear understanding of the compensation package.
4. Implementing a Unified Benefits Platform
With issues like fairness, pay equity, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals, and digitalisation becoming more important than ever for employers worldwide, a platform that allows you to manage these processes is vital. This can be accomplished through a unified benefits platform, which gives workers access to benefits information globally.
It's essential to provide all employees with a range of benefits and rewards that are accessible no matter where they're located. But aside from offering employees control and knowledge regarding their benefits, a benefits platform also supports leadership: enabling more confident decision-making by providing data-driven insights from every market and facilitating a deeper understanding of benefit effectiveness in each region.
This kind of platform can harness data to understand how benefits are performing — which is key in tracking ROI and optimising offerings. By integrating data, organisations can craft a cohesive global strategy while managing diverse benefits across different markets.
How can you apply these strategies?
By initiating these processes, your organisation can navigate the complexities of global benefits management, creating a more satisfied, engaged, and productive team.
Begin by identifying which aspects of your administrative process should be digitalised to streamline operations. Remember to prioritise individualisation throughout the process, listening to employees' needs and tailoring benefits accordingly. Consider integrating digital total rewards statements to cater to the diverse financial landscapes of your international workforce. And nothing can improve your operations more than implementing a benefits platform that will unify teams worldwide while providing data-driven insights.
If you're interested in learning more about how technology can improve your international HR administration, we’ve put together an outline of the global mobility opportunities that come with digitalising benefits and rewards offerings. Click below to read more.
