How do rewards and benefits make employees more productive

Last updated: 2023-01-195 min read time
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Every business wants to get the best out of their employees. There are many ways to this through, for example, training and development dialogues. However, some companies might be missing out when it comes to offering work rewards and benefits in difficult times and how they can really boost employees’ engagement.

Even the simplest benefits go a long way

It’s understood that a businesses in different countries will not be managed or run in the same way. There are differences in management styles, corporate culture, and country culture itself, which can extend through to laws and political stances. It can also be the case, therefore, that certain employees in certain countries may not know exactly what their employer has to offer in terms of work benefits. 

Results from The Future of Work Report show that almost 20% of U.K. respondents say they have very little knowledge of their total reward. In contrast, results show that German and Danish respondents believe they are most knowledgeable about their compensation and benefits with an impressive 65% and 62% respectively. These maybe-not-so-surprising but radically diverse figures show the differences between not only workplaces, but also, perhaps, work culture in different countries.

But what is the effect of employees not knowing their true value at work? During recent difficult times, there's never been a more urgent time for companies to offer relevant rewards and benefits that save their employees money...and these rewards and benefits don't even need to be complicated!employee productivity

How do benefits make employees more productive?

Several studies show that offering employees even the simplest of reward or benefit can increase productivity and wellness. An experiment conucted by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) and Warwick's Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) confirmed this to be true. They exposed random individuals to three so-called "shock" experiments where they were given work tasks. In the first two tasks, the participants were shown a comedy film at different times. In the third task, the participants were offered fruit and snacks as their "mood induction procedure", something which mimics the practices of many businesses across Europe. The participants were then asked to solve some mathematical problems in exchange for a financial reward after ten minutes.

After the experiment, the results were clear. The productivity of the particpants who were offered fruit and snacks was boosted by almost 20% for the short ten-minute work task compared to the placebo control group of participants. This result seems to suggest benefits do increase productivity and are really important to employees.

Now, this isn’t just a simple matter of taking a full lunch break at work because employers want to provide their employees with much more than what they are entitled to. They also want to let their employees know just what they are entitled to and what their true value is. This is where our solutions help make employees feel valued as well as save money through rewards and benefits. Our award-winning solution is truly mobile; our platform and employee app have reinvented the way modern employers engage with their employees. The easy-to-use communication engine allows HR professionals to connect with end-users at various touchpoints easily. With this, our clients can ensure personalised communication with their employees.employee platform benefits solution

What do employees say about their work benefits platform?

Our total reward and benefits platform is making it easier for employers to connect to their employees. In March 2017, L’Oréal, together with Benify, won the European Excellence Awards in HR under the category Compensation & Benefits / Incentives for the successful implementation of My HR Rewards.

Here’s what some of Loreal’s employees had to say about Benify:

“My HR Rewards makes it easy for me to exchange my bonus into my healthcare allowance. This gives me a bigger net-gain from my gross-salary.”
Thomas @ L’Oréal

“My HR Rewards allows me to use my bonus exchange for L’Oréal’s childcare benefits for both of my sons. This is such a great benefit for me.”
Thorsten @ L’Oréal

The European HR Excellence Awards honors outstanding HR initiatives and projects in 26 different categories including Compensation and Benefits/Incentives, Candidate Experience, Career and Recruiting Event, Knowledge Management, Employer Branding Strategy, and HR Analytics. Read more about the collaboration between L’Oreal and Benify in our client case.

In our study of 39,000 employees around Europe, some participants said they needed clearer information about their benefits, whereas others felt the information was clear.


Want to know more about the future of work? Download The Future of Work Report: Employee Benefits and Work Trends in Europe.

GET FUTURE OF WORK REPORT