Financial organisation utilises employee communications to relaunch employee benefits and improve employee satisfaction

The team at St. James’s Place Wealth Management needed to modernise its rewards offering as well as centralise  all of its employee benefits in one place for ease of access. They decided to achieve both objectives in one launch, with fresh branding and a clever communications plan.

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£67k

saved through employee discounts

£30k

saved in National Insurance

71%

of employees registered within a week of launch

£390k

spent on discounts platform within nine months

What they needed

In September 2018, the team at St. James’s Place Wealth Management worked with Reward Gateway to launch the My Rewards portal to all of its employees based in the UK. The team’s aim was to revamp and enhance their employee benefits proposition to be in line with company growth and development. With an increasing number of employees and a shift towards agile and flexible working, they needed a benefits offering that could keep up. 

The team’s vision was to bring all rewards into one central hub that could be accessed on all devices, both in and out of the office. Previous communications around rewards had been all over the place – scattered across the intranet, printed out and pinned up in cupboards or available from HR upon request.

The benefits themselves needed a boost, too. An employee opinion survey at St James’s Place revealed a 5% decrease in employee satisfaction with their benefits package. The team also saw potential new hires turning the company down due to what benefits were offered. It became clear that they needed to evolve with the times and provide  more flexible and diverse offerings. The package they had was largely traditional, with pension, medical and protection benefits. The team wanted to tie in a new platform with new and exciting benefits, all in one launch.

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Industry:

Banking & Finance

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Number of employees:

1,987

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Number of locations:

26

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Platform features:

Employee Benefits, Employee Discounts, Cycle to Work, Childcare Vouchers

How we helped

The team had a very ambitious timeline of four months to develop the new benefits and implement the portal. Despite some major IT issues, the team persevered, determined to successfully launch on their planned go-live date of 10th September 2018. 

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When it came to branding, the team were keen to ensure the visuals would reflect the new, forward-thinking rewards offering. With My Rewards, they wanted to step away from the organisation’s visuals, comprising navy blue and stone pillars. Instead, they introduced a wider colour palette with new fonts and flat icons of geometric shapes for a contemporary look. 

One of the achievements that the team was most proud of was their unconventional communication plan for the new rewards offering. They ran a teaser campaign, slowly revealing information about My Rewards, building curiosity and excitement over a three-week period. They distributed KitKats to each staff member with postcards signed by the company’s directors, encouraging employees to “Have a break” and take a look around the new platform.

The team also invited all employees to sign up for fun and casual demos, streamed on video so that staff in other locations could join in. Finally, they sent out personalised emails to all employees from the HR Director, thanking and recognising staff for their dedication and hard work ahead of the new offerings. 

In 2021, the team decided that another area that was in need of some attention was St. James's Total Reward Statements. Working with Reward Gateway, the team moved from their paper-based TRS's on an annual basis to a digital format that employees could access anywhere, anytime and the HR team is now able to make changes to the TRS quickly and easily, allowing for the team to be more self-sufficient. 

 

The results

Within a week of launch, 71% of employees registered an account with My Rewards. To date, 97% of employees are registered, with 96% of these active users. Throughout May 2019, 13.25% of employees logged into the portal more than five times. 

Upon the launch of the platform, the team also introduced the new Cycle to Work scheme – 39 employees have now signed up to this scheme, with a total value of £28,700. Employees have saved £8,600 and the company has saved £4,000 in national insurance. 

The discounts have been particularly popular, and within nine 9 months, employees spent £390,400 through the portal’s discounts area, making a total saving of £33,200.

In March 2019, the team launched a new Buy Holiday benefit via My Rewards. A total of 327 employees participated in the holiday trading scheme, with a total spend of £223,900 – meaning employees saved £67,200 and the company saved £30,900 in national insurance. 

The team has received positive feedback from employees, who have said the platform has made their reward and benefit policies “really easy to find,” as they are all now accessible in one place.

As for the new TRS, Reward Business Partner Charlotte Wright has nothing but positive feedback on the new system. She says, "Our previous paper-based TRS was sent to our employees on an annual basis and didn't provide a comprehensive overview of their total reward package. Moving to a digital format has helped us make a real impact on our employees' lives. On the second day of launch, an employee reached out about a critical illness claim because they now were aware of its availability! This was life-changing for the individual, and we know this is all because of the information delivered through the TRS."