Recent research by AIG UK Benefits found key contrasts between the perceptions of employers and employees over the take up and effectiveness of Voluntary Employee Benefits (VEB).

The most striking gaps in perception were;

• While 86% of employers feel they communicate their VEBs effectively, only 36% of employees feel their employers are doing enough to promote the benefits available.
• 87% of employers claimed to consult employees and use their feedback to decide benefits selection though only 23% of employees claimed to have been consulted.

Other key findings of the research were that;

• 80% of employees found the concept of VEBs appealing though 36% admitted to not actually using them and 38% stated they didn’t intend to use them in the near future.
• 75% of employees saw the employer’s benefits package as a deciding factor when selecting employment and furthermore, 76% felt that a benefits package could directly influence their decision to stay with their employer.

Worryingly, the research also found that;

• 32% of respondents didn’t feel their current VEBs worked in motivating them or their colleagues, 33% didn’t think they improved loyalty and 28% feeling they didn’t attract staff and aid in their retention.

The overriding theme of the findings were that communication is key, and that it is an absolute must in reconciling the differences of perception between employers and employees when it comes to VEBs.

Employers seem to be overestimating the interest and take up of VEBs, but this is caused in large by employees underestimating the VEBs they receive and not getting the full extent of personal benefit.

Communication is crucial in ensuring the effectiveness and take up of VEBs. Employers need to put in place a full communications strategy that promotes the VEB scheme and allows the employees to get the most out of their VEB package and the employer to get the maximum return on investment.

In Peoplevalue’s case, we will manage a scheme’s communications on a client’s behalf as part of a comprehensive communications package, driving awareness and informing employees fully of the benefits they receive.

In this communications package, clarity is also a driving factor. Peoplevalue go to great lengths to maintain a clear communication of the advantages of their VEB solution. The flexible communications strategy allows for contemporary issues to be included alongside the generic, increasing the schemes effectiveness and take up overall.

For more information on how Peoplevalue’s communications can be tailored to include contemporary issues, please download our “credit crunch” collateral here

A recent survey has revealed just how influential non-monetary rewards can be over an employer’s rates of retention - those who offer non-monetary rewards to employees have higher rates than those who don’t.

Reported by Nicola Sullivan of Employee Benefits Magazine, the survey by market research organisation GfK NOP polled 1000 and found that of those respondents who were planning to leave their jobs within the year, 44% worked under line managers who didn’t employ non-monetary rewards to motivate their staff and only 25% worked for line managers who did.

Confirming the influence non-monetary rewards have over rates of retention, the survey also found that over half (51%) of those employees who were the recipients on non-monetary rewards intended to stay in their job indefinitely. Just 24% of staff who do not receive non-monetary rewards claim to be satisfied in their job with 49% stating they would not be in their current role if given the choice.

Speaking of the survey’s finding, Sukhi Ghatore, associate director of GfK NOP stated “It is well documented that non-monetary reward is an important motivator for staff, but the effect on employee retention of failing to embrace such recognition is quite startling.”

It seems clear that for improved employee retention, a Peoplevalue-powered reward solution could have a definite influence. Excellence Awards are an innovative non-cash reward solution that lets an organisation take a proactive role in maximising employee retention and avoiding the hassles of high employee churn.

With the dual onslaught of inflation and high interest rates, Peoplevalue’s Advantage voluntary benefits solution has the real potential to maximize a person’s disposable income and combat the crisis of consumer confidence.

The most recent findings from market research company Nielsen and the British Retail Consortium revealed that a third of the population had major concerns over the British economy. Based on the thoughts of a thousand consumers, the UK Consumer Confidence index now stands at 79, the lowest score since the survey began in 2003.

The apparent lack of confidence was also coupled with a sense of pessimism. 55% of people felt that their own personal finances would be poor in the coming year, and when asked what they did with any spare money, 22% of respondents admitted to having none. The fact that one in five has no disposable income after covering essentials reveals the importance and relevance of voluntary benefits solutions like Advantage.

Peoplevalue’s Advantage solution provides employees with access to thousands of discounted products and services, maximising their disposable income and improving their quality of life. With Advantage, an employee can make significant savings on essentials and non-essentials alike. Categories include everyday shopping, travel, sports and leisure, entertainment, CDs, DVDs, videos and games, health and beauty, cars and discounted retail vouchers.

Though non-essential spending is down overall as a direct result of this crisis in confidence, 24% or respondents still spent their spare money on new clothes, 21% on out of home entertainment, 24% on home improvement and 14% on new technology. This is where Advantage comes into its own and demonstrates an employers’ dedication to its employees and their efforts to improve their quality of life.

Advantage can be customised and branded in any corporate image and seamlessly integrated into any existing program, significantly enhancing the overall benefits package. Fully managed by Peoplevalue, Advantage offers the maximum benefit without the need to commit valuable resources and a potent tool with which to combat the crisis of consumer confidence.

“We are confident that with Advantage, we have developed a market-leading solution with the real potential to improve lives” says Mike Morgan, MD of Peoplevalue. “Our dedicated content management team is alert to consumer habits. They have worked diligently and with a market awareness to create a valuable resource for employees who can benefit from real and relevant discounts in the areas of their spending. By saving them money and maximizing their disposable incomes, Advantage lets them get more out of life than they could normally afford to,” he concluded.

New research by market researcher TNS has revealed that employees in Greater London take almost twice as many “fake” sick days as the national average.

The “Britain at Work” study showed that 33% of London workers admitted to calling in sick to work when they were not in fact physically ill. These stark statistics are even more startling when the national average is 19% and 12% of London workers pull a “sickie” at least three times a year.

The study also provided an interesting insight into the various reasons us Brits use to justify a day off “sick” from work. On average, 30% would pull a “sickie” because they felt stressed, 12% because they felt tired and 45% because they were going through relationship issues.

Embarrassingly, 12% of London workers felt a hangover was a reasonable excuse for a day off work.

The survey sampled 1,000 people aged 16 - 24. One might argue that the sample represented the views of a younger generation and the new breed of “young professionals” and couldn’t be held as representative of the overall working population, but these “young professionals” are the new generation of employees so the statistics are relevant for the future of Absenteeism in the workplace.

“We have seen a steady increase in employers taking practical measures to curb ’sickies’ - and these figures show there is a real need for this” according to Gemma Camp, Head of Stakeholder Management at TNS.

“Rather than just coming down hard on employees, businesses need to introduce better incentives for high attendance and seek to identify what it is that drives people to call in sick. Employee engagement is more important than ever - we know that higher levels of engagement result in lower levels of absenteeism” she concluded.

For more information on how Peoplevalue’s Excellence Awards can help reduce levels of Absenteeism, please click here.

In their latest White Paper “Managing Reward: Why line managers are the vital link“, the Hay Group surveyed 1,186 organisations in 78 countries and found a universality to the importance of the line manager in the success of any reward program.

The research found that the success of any reward scheme was largely determined by its implementation and not by its design. The reward programs with the best return on investment were those where HR and the line managers had worked as a streamlined unit to communicate the value of the rewards, having a positive influence on how the reward scheme was perceived by employees.

Effective communications rely on the relationship that already exists between the line manager and the employee. Many organisations ignore the key role the line manager has to play, limiting the ultimate success of any reward scheme from the very start.

In addition to overlooking the significance of the line manager, the Hay Group found that only 35% of organisations in the survey said they did an effective job of educating and training in the area of reward scheme implementation.

Offering its advice to organisations considering the inplementation of a reward scheme, the Hay Group said;

• Don’t leave it solely to HR
• Use line managers to communicate the value of the reward scheme to employees using exisiting communications channels
• Make sure that HR makes the goals of the reward scheme clear and easily understood
• Ensure that line managers receive thorough training and that a support structure is in place post-launch.

£1.4 Billion of British tax payers’ hard-earned money could be saved if the Public Sector reconciled its rates of Absenteeism with those of the Private Sector.

According to the annual Confederation of British Industry/Axa Absence Survey, Absenteeism cost the UK economy a staggering £13.2 Billion in 2007. This was calculated from the 172 million working days lost to abscence in 2007, an average of 6.7 days off sick per employee.

On closer inspection, the survey found that the absence rates of the Public Sector were 55% higher than the those in the Private Sector, losing 9 days per employee to absence while the Private sector lost 5.8 days. The gulf bewteen the sectors had reached record highs in the results for 2007 and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) estimated that the Public sector could save £1.4 Billion of tax payers money if they could reduce their rates of absence to match those of the Private Sector.

Of the 172million working days lost, 12% were thought to be non-genuine. This equated to 21 Million “Sickies” at an estimated cost to the economy of £1.6 Billion. This prompted Susan Anderson, CBI’s Director of HR Policy to assert that “employers face two serious and expensive challenges - dealing with bogus sick days, and helping those with long-term illness return to work when they are fit to do so.”

“People who awarded themselves sickies to enjoy the recent sunny weather or to extend a weekend away are acting unfairly, leaving their colleagues to pick up their work, and costing taxpayers and employers over a billion pounds a year,” she concluded.

Continuing the theme of Anderson’s assertions, the survey also incorporated the indirect costs of absence to UK Industry. The average direct cost of absence in 2007 was £517 per employee, but when indirect costs such as reduced customer satisfaction and productivity were taken into account, absence cost an additional £263 per employee.

When adding the indirect cost to the direct cost of absence, Absenteeism cost the UK an enormous £19.9 billion in 2007.

To see how Peoplevalue’s solutions can be tailored to combat Absenteeism directly, please click here

One of the indirect causes of absence identified by the survey was low morale in the workplace and a lack of motivation. According to the survey, 70% believed that “praise for a job well done” was the most important factor in raising staff morale.

Peoplevalue’s Excellence Awards technology can be specifically tailored to motivate staff, increasing morale and in turn the levels of absence. For more information, please click here

According to a recent survey by Investors in People UK, nearly one third of UK employees feel de-motivated in their current role.

In the survey, reported by HR Zone, 43% even went so far as to suggest they plan on leaving thier job in the next year as a direct result of their lack of motivation.

The survey found that the top three de-motivating factors were;

1. Unreasonable Workload - 18%
2. Feeling Underpaid - 18%
3. Lack of a clear career path - 17%

In addition, nearly a quarter of the respondents felt they were not fully supported by their managers. De-motivation was found to be highest at 39% in larger organisations of 5000 employees or more compared to the 30% in organisations of between 50 and 250 employees.

Especially interesting in light of the PPMA’s conference, was the finding that de-motivation was highest at 41% in the Public Sector with 44% even claiming they were less motivated than they were a year ago.

Singing from the same sadly pessimistic hymsheet was the UK’s largest independent recruitment-agency scoring company Hirescores.com, who in an interview with HRLook, reported that London-based workers topped a table of unhappy workers in the UK. 74% of London workers said that they thought about finding a new job at least once a day. Almost 1700 people participated in the survey, which saw the South East and Northern Ireland complete the unhappy top 3 with 69% and 51% of workers respectively thinking of trying to find another job at least once daily.

In his interview with HR Zone, Simon Jones, Chief Executive of Investors in People UK lamented, “this research reveals a worrying picture, not only because such a significant proportion of UK employees are de-motivated, but because it suggests that valuable employees may be heading for the door.”

High levels of employee churn will always follow in de-motivation’s shadow. A lack of motivation not only effects productivity and employee retention, but it is also highly detrimental to a business’ bottom line.

Peoplevalue’s Excellence awards systems allow an employer to proactively prevent de-motivation from building any momentum - before it has the chance to effect productivity and morale. They make it possible to reward, recognise and inspire employees in the workplace and create a clear structure of support and motivation. Both employers and employees will reap the benefits.

Thomsons Online Benefits‘ 2008 Employee Rewards Watch survey showed, that the number of companies who had implemented a flexible benefits package had increased to 23.91%. This had increased from the 5% who had a flexible benefits scheme in 2004. In addition, over a quarter (25.27%) were considering the implementation of a flexible benefits scheme in the next calendar year.

Of the 755 UK employers who responded, a 63.19% majority believed that their reward strategy was effective in meeting the objectives of attracting and retaining talent, driving better business performance and driving better individual performance.

The survey also showed that 20.71% of respondents used web based employee benefts software, up nearly 12% from last year.

Thomsons Online Benefits currently use Peoplevalue’s Advantage voluntary benefits platform as a part of their flexible benefits packages. For the full report, click here