Cover story Staff benefi ts “I think organisations now need to be really mindful about gimmicks. People will see through that.” e term ‘holistic’ is on the lips of many a HR leader right now amid a recognition that employees want to feel supported in a balanced way. “Employees expect more from their companies than they ever did before,” says Debra Corey, founder of DebCo HR and author of Build it: e Rebel Playbook for Employee Engagement . “It’s not just what you’re doing within the con nes of your o ce, but what are you doing to support the greater good, even from a reward perspective.” Corey, who previously led reward teams at Gap, Honeywell and Merlin Entertainments, describes it as a meeting of the internal and external. “Before, when we looked at the external world, it was about looking at our competition to see what they were doing,’ says Corey. “Now it’s about looking at what’s happening in the world and thinking ‘how can I weave that into my rewards programme?’ and realising that actually the bene ts you have are a statement of who you are.” Warnings on the climate emergency and investors’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria are also creating pressure on employers to o er ‘green’ bene ts that might help to in uence employee’s choices outside the workplace. Aviva’s focus on the environment is as much driven by its employees as it is by investors. “Our colleagues are asking us questions about exible bene ts like the bike-to-work scheme and whether we can include e-bikes, or whether we can o er anything on electric cars,” says Harmer. “ is year, for the rst time, we’re including ESG measures in the long-term incentive plan for the executive team. So it now includes measures around diversity and our net zero carbon measures. We’re coming at it from both ends and really starting to weave the environment into our approach to reward.” Meanwhile, the Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests of summer 2020 have brought a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion with HR leaders considering the fairness of their reward programmes. According to Cotton at the CIPD, it’s become ever more critical that organisations’ public expressions of solidarity align with internal behaviour. “Lots of organisations came out with these identikit statements of empathy and sympathy but people were saying ‘Actually in your own organisation, you’re not practising what you preach’,” says Cotton. e CIPD’s Reward Management Survey , published in March 2021, found that in response to the BLM movement, 22% of employers had considered reward fairness while 19% had taken or will take direct action which included introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting, new pay policies, benchmarking roles and a review of spending on bene ts to ensure fairness for all employees. “I am seeing [employers] who are looking at whether their bene ts programme is diverse enough or whether it actually only ts a certain group of employees,” adds Corey. “It’s not just about o ering a diverse range of bene ts but also building in enough exibility that they are inclusive and anyone can use them.” Tait says the rise of employer review sites like Glassdoor is making it easier for candidates to assess whether the pay and bene ts they are being o ered is backed by a healthy, purpose-driven culture. Where that’s not the case, no amount of bene ts PR will help; just ask Brewdog. An open letter signed by (at last count) 250 former and current sta accused the brewing company of fostering a sexist, misogynistic culture and of failing to live up to its public mission, including not ful lling some of the employee bene ts it claims to o er. In response, Brewdog announced an independent culture review, as well as a salary and bene ts review. Tait says it’s di cult for candidates not to be in uenced by these types It’s not just what you’re doing within the con nes of your of ce, but what are you doing to support the greater good of stories and the damage caused to the brand. “Candidates are becoming much more discerning about their decisions because what’s important in people’s lives has been drawn into focus over the last 18 months,” says Tait. “No longer are people prepared to go and work for an organisation that doesn’t align with how they see themselves and their family, no matter what’s on o er.” Pandemic hangover As employers look to reshape their bene ts to match employees’ changed expectations, it is unsurprising that the pandemic remains the single biggest in uence over that process. Right now, multi-dimensional wellbeing is the overriding trend in bene ts. Once ‘wellbeing’ might have meant o ering gym memberships, but now the term has broadened to include mental, digital and nancial wellbeing as well as physical health. At Aviva, employees have access to apps that support mental health such as Headspace and rive, and more recently the organisation has introduced the app Peppy to support its female employees going through the menopause. Mona Akiki, chief people o cer at Perkbox, says that UK employers continue to prioritise mindfulness and mental health, which will come as no surprise given the impact of the pandemic and successive lockdowns. “When it comes to wellbeing it’s really about what’s important for the employee at their own life stage,” says Akiki. “O ering one-on-one sessions is always going to be important, but more than that it’s about the proactiveness of your mindfulness. So employers are providing resources on how to meditate when you wake up to make your day better. Yoga and gym discounts are important but so are talks from thought leaders or medical professionals that can help you through di erent stages in life. So the trend is about being proactive rather than waiting until things go bad for an employee and then attempting to x it.” hrmagazine.co.uk 24 HR September/October 2021