Making total rewards work

Article Type: Rewards From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 9, Issue 6

Short case studies and research papers that demonstrate best practice in rewards

Increasing workplace productivity is an issue that is widely discussed but rarely addressed properly as employers struggle to understand and implement procedures that directly impact efficiency. Workplace productivity is crucial to maintaining or increasing an organization’s profitability, and employees are fundamental to this. Staff may be a company’s most expensive asset but they are also its most important asset. Ensuring employees are healthy, happy and motivated is the key to increased productivity and in turn a successful,thriving business.

Total reward an unknown benefit

Lewisham College, based in South East London, is a large vocational college employing over 350 staff and works with mutual healthcare provider Benenden Healthcare Society in an effort to improve staff wellbeing. During a review of its total reward packages, Lewisham College found that the benefits of the health and wellbeing offering were largely unknown to employees, an observation that directly reflected research highlighted by Benenden Healthcare.

Benenden Healthcare focuses on informing organizations about how vital it is to address health and wellbeing, ensuring they understand that improving employee health and wellbeing will positively affect business productivity. It commissioned research that investigated staff awareness of health and wellbeing packages in relation to “total reward,” a scheme that combines financial remuneration and non-financial rewards into one benefits package. Total reward packages give employees the opportunity to earn qualifications and gain new skills that will enhance their future career prospects, engages the employee more directly with the business, and addresses issues surrounding health and wellbeing in the workplace.

The research highlighted that 80 percent of public sector workers have never heard of total reward packages, despite recognition that a holistic approach to health and wellbeing significantly improves staff retention and increases productivity (Benenden Healthcare Society, 2009).

The need to promote internal awareness

Benenden Healthcare examined the factors contributing to individual wellbeing, as well as discussing the impact that coordinated programs can have when implemented in the workplace. It found that happiness and being mentally well are the biggest contributors to wellbeing and as a result employees feel that wellbeing has a major impact on their productivity.

While Lewisham College understands the benefits of a wellbeing offering for its staff, many organizations do not realize that low levels of health and wellbeing among staff impacts directly on employee productivity causing higher rates of absenteeism, lower efficiency and motivation. If employers have implemented a health and wellbeing program as a core corporate strategy,problems could still be arising due to a prominent lack of awareness about the benefits on offer.

While Lewisham College had implemented health and wellbeing packages for its staff, it found that the majority of staff had no awareness about the scheme,presenting the possibility of low staff morale and motivation. Benenden Healthcare’s findings showed that organizations which make staff fully aware of their health and wellbeing packages will see a marked increase in efficiency levels directly impacting productivity and in turn their bottom line.

Engaging staff with the rewards package

After reviewing existing total reward packages and assessing their effectiveness, Lewisham College realized it needed to deal with the general lack of knowledge about the health and wellbeing offering, understanding that a“healthy workforce is a happy workforce.” As a result Lewisham College worked alongside the society to raise awareness and engage staff more effectively. Benenden Healthcare representatives, for example, were invited to visit the campus to meet staff face-to-face and highlight all of the benefits that members receive. The society also sent nurses to visit the college and carry out complimentary health checks for the members.

The HR staff at Lewisham College were core to the total reward implementation and understood that for the packages to have a real impact all of the eligible full time staff that were offered a health and wellbeing offering had to know exactly what they were entitled to. While the promotion of staff packages was a relatively easy process, certain considerations had to be made for staff that may have felt uncomfortable meeting with nurses and undergoing health screening tests, which ultimately would have meant taking time away from their work.

To address these considerations, Lewisham widely publicized the benefits of the staff packages on the college intranet but did make attending the nurse visits compulsory. As it happened, the employees were actually very pleased to find out that they were entitled to an extensive healthcare package, which included benefits for other services, such as optometry and dentistry, and were not displeased by the attendance of Benenden Healthcare nurses.

Driving down absenteeism

As a result of working with Benenden Healthcare to address the lack of awareness of its health and wellbeing offerings, the HR department at Lewisham College has not only witnessed an improvement in staff motivation but also a clear drop in absenteeism. Over a two-year period the average number of sickness absence days has gone down from 8.5 days per person per year to 4.5 days per person per year. As can be seen with Lewisham College, it is clear that health and wellbeing needs to be directly linked to organizational productivity as only by doing this can money lost through absenteeism be saved.

Putting in place an effective health and wellbeing strategy, then empowering staff with the solutions, is the recipe for a happier, healthier and, in turn,more efficient workforce.

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  Total reward research: key findings

  • There’s a lack of knowledge on the true cost of sickness absence to an organization.

  • Sickness absence is not seen as an institutional or cultural issue – but an individual issue.

  • Health and wellbeing is not seen as a high priority at board level.

  • There is a limited understanding of the cost of non-salary benefits.

  • There is no clear understanding of “Total reward.”

  • There is a broad belief by staff that total reward style policies will have a positive effect on motivation.

  The research for Benenden Healthcare Society was carried out by Opinion Matters in October 2010 with a sample of 1,010 UK public sector workers (Benenden Healthcare Society, 2009).

About the authors

Amanda Ludlow Head of Business Development at Benenden Healthcare Society. Prior to joining the organization, she worked for a number of high profile names including Hilton Hotel Group, Guinness Worldwide and United Biscuits. In her current role, she is responsible for liaising with the organization’s key corporate partners and clients. She has an honours degree and Master’s in business studies. Amanda Ludlow is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: amanda.ludlow@benenden.org.uk

Angela Farrell Senior HR Manager at Lewisham College. She joined the organization in 2009.