Large builders merchant reaches nearly half of its retired employee population with tailored platform

Learn how Reward Gateway client Travis Perkins engaged its retired population with an innovative employee engagement platform.

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Industry:

Builders Merchants and Retail

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Number of employees:

28,000

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Number of companies:

2,000

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Platform features:

Employee discounts, employee recognition

 

The challenge

Travis Perkins’s journey started with the introduction of GDPR and its impact on the business’s retired employee population. The company and its Retired Employee Association (REA) stored information about retired staff on historic paper records and spreadsheets. Data security was paramount and the team had to find ways to store retired employees’ personal data securely, to gain their consent to hold this data and for the REA to contact them.

The purpose of the REA is to help maintain links between Travis Perkins and its large population of retirees. It is run by a committee of regional organizers, who are retired employees themselves, meeting twice a year to ensure the smooth running of the association. Regional organizers arrange biennial lunches, where retirees can socialize, to celebrate life events such as milestone birthdays and to support each other during difficult times, such as following a bereavement.

Travis Perkins’s culture is built around its five “cornerstones,” (or values) promoting good behavior, performance and loyalty. Staff pride themselves on the way they treat others, shown by how retired employees are thought of as extended family, which strategically links the team’s objective with the “Upholding Family Values” cornerstone.

The business already had a strong partnership with Reward Gateway via its “myPerks benefits” platform, and the team came up with the innovative idea of a sister site for the retired employee population. On the platform, retirees can view blogs, send one another peer-to-peer eCards and access thousands of discounts – helping to bring people closer together and improve engagement with this group (who is spread out across various locations). 

 

The approach

The new tiles for the homepage were designed using Travis Perkins’s existing myPerks branding and colors. Reward Gateway’s core discounts and cashback offers were included, as well as the online employee discount for Travis Perkins’s two retail businesses: Wickes and Toolstation. The team named the site “Your Perks,” as it provided a connection with the current myPerks benefits platform, with “perks” also linking to the company name. The name and design of the site provides a sense of continuity and familiarity for retired employees.

The team worked with Reward Gateway to design four eCards with different themes to show their appreciation for retired employees. The eCards and blogs would also provide a channel for retired staff to communicate directly with each other, reestablishing bonds between former colleagues. Regional organizers were assigned blog functionality, which let them write and publish blogs to share with the retired employees in their region. These are used to send out blanket communications. To keep retirees in the loop, the platform hosts The “TP News” section.

To prep for launch, the team met up at Reward Gateway’s London office, where they demonstrated the system to the regional organizers and received positive feedback. To make the most of the discounts and cashback offers, the team made sure to set the launch date in time for the holidays to help offset what can be an expensive time of year.

The team wrote to retired colleagues with whom they were already in contact, as well as others who had retired within the last two years to let them know about the platform. Your Perks is available to any retired Travis Perkins employee and the team approve their membership directly on the platform on a case-by-case basis.

 

The results

The Your Perks platform has ensured that the Retired Employee Association is GDPR compliant, self-sufficient and fosters a sense of community. Many of the retired employees worked for the Travis Perkins Group for many years, so extending the benefit that they may have been used to for retirees is another way to keep them connected to the business and show appreciation, even after leaving the company.

Take-up exceeded the team’s expectations during the first six months after initial invitations were sent, with 867 out of the 2,000 retirees they wrote to registering on Your Perks – a 43% success rate. eCards have been popular, with 111 sent during the first two months following the launch, increasing to 556 by the end of May 2019. Registered members spent over $83,000 on the site, saving nearly $7,000 thanks to deals and discounts.

Newly retired colleagues are invited each month and take-up continues to grow. The Your Perks site has developed into the go-to place for retired employees to stay up to date with what’s happening within Travis Perkins, connect with their former colleagues and take advantage of discounts and cashback savings.