Few would disagree that we live in the age of distraction. Be it social media feeds, instant messengers, text messages, emails, TV commercials, or the internet, when we’re not multitasking, we’re swiping between apps.
Today, with everything competing for our attention, it’s hard to know what we should focus on and what’s of greatest importance.
The Attention Dilemma
This sensory overload we’re all experiencing isn’t just occurring in our personal lives, it’s happening at work too. In fact, according to one study, nearly 3 out of 4 workers say they feel distracted at work.
Unsurprisingly, engaging employees is a common challenge and can be a source of frustration for employers today, especially when trying to raise awareness or communicate about something they believe is of high importance to their employees.
The truth is, however, trying to engage your employees in something isn’t any different than trying to engage people with anything. First, think about what it takes to pique your interest. More often than not, it’s something that either speaks to you, is about you or is something that you can relate to.
Focusing on What’s Important
With relevancy in mind, our study of more than 58,000 employees across Europe about the future of work reveals that financial benefits are the number one benefit that employees in the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands, say would like their employer to offer them today.
So, with the goal to increase engagement, with the above finding in mind, and taking into account how to pique interest, we have, in fact, just tackled the first challenge – knowing what employees are interested in.
So, now what?
The 5 Step Rule
Whether you’re trying to communicate the launch of a new benefit or wish to increase employee awareness of their finances so that they take action, to engage employees, there is a five-step rule you should follow. You need to:
1. Make it easy to access
2. Make it digital
3. Make it personal
4. Make it easy to understand
5. Make interaction/participation easy
Engaging Employees About Their Total Reward
Using the rules above, let’s use the example of a total reward statement, which is one of the most powerful ways to engage employees about their finances. First, the statement should be easily accessible and digital, which is where an employee benefits platform comes into play. Employees can simply log in to their benefits platform and view their digital total reward statement.
The information must be personal and easy to understand; a total reward statement provides each employee with a personalised and illustrated financial breakdown of all the different components that make up their total compensation package, including salary, benefits, insurances and other add-ons.
When viewing their total reward statement, an employee may, for example, realise they are not currently enroled in a specific benefit or insurance. This is when the ability to take action is vital. In the same benefits platform that they view their total reward statement, employees should be able to enrol in new benefits or insurances with just a few clicks.
Personalised and engaging, a digital total reward statement is a powerful tool that helps employees understand their finances and their employer’s full investment.
Engaging Employees Through Communication
The same rules apply when it comes to communicating to employees about the launch of a new benefit, insurance or change to their pension plan.
Your communications should be easy to access and consider employees’ different communication preferences, not just the ones sitting behind desks. For example, if your employee benefits platform provider also has a communication engine, you can send push notifications to employees’ phones notifying them of any additions or changes to their benefits. To learn more why your company needs an employee app, read this article.
Using different digital channels for different employee groups is especially important when you have a widespread workforce or employees working in factories, stores or on the road.
Rather than adopt a scattergun approach for your employee communication, target your message to only those it concerns. In other words, make it personal. With communication filters, you can target your communications to specific groups of employees, such as eligibility, enrolment, location, age and more.
Information about any new benefit should be easy to understand and explain exactly what the individual needs to do to enrol. Finally, participation or taking action should be as easy as checking a few boxes and clicking “confirm” or “enrol.”
When you consider that the average office worker receives 120 emails every day, personalization, ease of information and relevancy are of utmost importance when it comes to engaging employees with your communications.
To get more insights and read about employee engagement ideas, download our free e-book, Employee Engagement: Unlocking Your Employees’ Potential.
