Before you continue reading this post, we have a little exercise for you to try. Wherever you are right now, take a quick look at the people around you. What’s the one thing that they’re all doing? What is it that they all have in common? That’s right - they’re all using their smartphones.
Today, we are always connected, always-on, not just in our private lives but our work lives too. In fact, according to Deloitte’s Global Mobile Consumer Survey, we view our smartphones about 14 billion times per day — an average of 52 looks per user! There’s no doubt we love our phones.
Our constant use of smartphones has also led to a need for instant gratification and immediacy in all that we do. We make purchases, book flights, order food – all from our phones, all in an instant – and we receive confirmations and notifications of our actions in the blink of an eye. Additionally, we want constant updates and news concerning every part of our lives.
Viewing Your Total Reward on Your Phone
The above wants, desires and expectations, of course, extend to our work lives. As employees, we want to be kept in the loop and up to date; we want to know how all the ins and out about our employment, what our total compensation package is actually worth, and everything that it contains.
Most leading organizations have a total reward strategy, which includes issuing employees a total reward statement (TRS), whereby employers provide their employees with an illustrated breakdown of their total compensation, including benefits, insurances, bonuses and any other add-ons. Today’s employees expect the same level technology at work as they use in their private lives, which means that being able to access and view their total reward whenever and wherever it’s convenient is essential.
A Case Example
With more than 44,000 employees in 22 countries, Standard Bank is the largest bank in Africa. The company implemented its global benefits and total rewards platform to create greater employee self-service and awareness of their total reward.
“You could think of this as a retention mechanism. It’s basically a solution where employees can go into one system and one view, through an app, and see all the benefits that are available to them,” shares Jelica Nerahoo, HRIS Systems Specialist, at Standard Bank.
"When employees leave the organization, they may not realize what they’re leaving behind, so it was something the global benefits team came up with. Today, if employees decide to leave Standard Bank, they’ve got something to compare it with.” Download the Standard Bank client case to learn more.
Stay in The Loop
Ordinarily, employees look at their total reward once a year. But what happens to an employee’s total reward when they enroll in a new benefit or insurance or receive a commission or bonus? These changes, of course, affect their total reward.
As such, employees should be notified and made aware of any changes to their total reward so that they can always see the current value of their compensation package. And what’s the best way to communicate and show employees their total reward? Via their phones, of course.
At Benify, we see that 74% of all logins to the Benify platform are made through our app. The Benify app allows employees to log in to their benefits platform to view their total reward outside of regular work hours and gives deskless employees the same unrestricted accessibility as those working behind a computer.
Using an App for Communication
In addition to offering employees greater accessibility, when Benify’s platform receives information periodically from any integrated third-party systems, platform administrators can use the platform’s built-in communication engine communications to communicate to employees about changes to their total reward. After all, an employee’s compensation is rarely static. Benify’s total reward solution is dynamic and truly mobile, providing employees with an accurate and current visualization of their total compensation package.
For example, administrators may wish to send an email, push notification or post a message inside the benefits platform saying, “Your paygrade has changed”, “Your quarterly commission has been published and is now available to view” or “You are eligible for a new benefit.”
There are many critical moments in the employee lifecycle that affect an employee’s total reward. Leading organizations are using total rewards communications to direct users to specific well-being content whenever an everyday life event occurs.
When an employee receives a salary increase, for example, administrators could send communications to invite the employee to a webinar where they can learn more about financial wellness or how to invest their money. Another example could be to send a message or notification whenever an employee changes role or paygrade and, as a result, their health cover changes. Communications could be sent advising the employee to review their health plan or book a health screening assessment.
Using an app to communicate with employees helps create a dynamic and continuous total reward experience instead of merely a static statement that is updated once annually.
Want to read more about total rewards? Grab our whitepaper. 