An HR team at a large company conducted a conjoint employee survey. The results were surprising. Employees unequivocally felt their Total Rewards were lacking.
Third-party data showed otherwise. Objectively, a name-brand HR consultancy confirmed the company’s Total Rewards were at least as good as—and in many cases better than—that of their competitors. Clearly, there was a disconnect between perception and reality.
In looking at the data, an HR leader realized the average employee had been with the company for 15 years. During that time, HR hadn’t bothered to proactively communicate with the population. Instead, HR primarily relied on onboarding and the two-week annual enrollment period to educate employees about the total offer. This meant that unless an employee had just started, he/she probably had an outdated understanding of what was included beyond their paycheck and medical coverage.
As this HR leader began digging deeper into her hypothesis other, anecdotal stories emerged. Stories about employees not realizing there was a tuition reimbursement program. That they were eligible for discounts on cars. That they had access to back-up daycare.
After looking at the qualitative and quantitative data, this HR leader recognized her company didn’t have a program issue. It had a communications issue.
When she first came to my former employer, she thought she needed some posters and perhaps a brochure—something that listed and described all the available programs in one place. We told her posters and brochures might temporarily solve her awareness issue but definitely wouldn’t shift perceptions and therefore weren’t the right solution. That’s because posters and brochures are temporary. Making a lasting change in employees’ awareness and understanding of their Total Rewards and shifting perceptions from bleh to wow would require a consistent, repetitive effort. That’s why she needed a sustainable, compelling communications system.
By establishing a communications system, her team would be able to consistently reinforce the narrative they wanted employees to have, regardless of whether they were communicating about annual enrollment, compensation, recognition, or retirement. While the messaging and calls-to-action would be different, foundational elements would remain the same across all collateral – from email to coffee sleeves to home mailers – which would build “brand” equity. It would be clear to employees that an email, digital display, desk drop, etc. was from HR, and that the featured program was intended to benefit employees and add value to their employment experience.
Our recommendation made sense to this HR leader and I found myself spearheading my first HR project. Someday, in another blog post, I’ll talk about the process, some of the specific executions, and the journey, but today I want to focus on the result I’m most proud of:
- Employee satisfaction in Total Rewards increased by 27% without any programmatic changes.
- Side note: They’ve also been a client of mine for almost ten years.
By communicating about Total Rewards—and its individual programs along with specific initiatives—in a consistent, compelling, and understandable way we were able to shift employee perceptions from negative to positive. Instead of relying solely on onboarding and annual enrollment to tell the Total Rewards story, we used the system to proactively communicate with employees throughout the year. By raising awareness about Total Rewards programs employees were able to make informed decisions, participate in programs that were relevant to personal and professional lives, and get more value out of their employment experience. I know there’s no silver bullet for employee engagement. Total Rewards is just one piece of the equation. And I know benefits, compensation, and development aren’t going to keep someone from leaving a bad manager, but it might keep them from leaving the company. When employees have the right coverage and are empowered to use the programs available to them, it frees them up to do the stuff they’ve been hired to do. It also builds goodwill and strengthens the employer/employee relationship. So if employees don’t believe their Total Rewards are competitive or feel there are programs to support throughout their various life and career stages, it may be a programmatic problem, or it may be a communications problem.
Note: All communication systems need to operate within and complement the master brand.