Flexible Benefits

Flex provides HR departments with a ‘ready made’, adaptable, compensation strategy that increases knowledge, understanding and choice for employees. This in turn helps deliver the increases in retention, motivation and productivity that all benefit programmes aim for. At the same time flex can aid your business to achieve significant improvements in streamlining its processes and easing a heavy HR administrative burden. So what is preventing more businesses taking the plunge?

Perception vs Reality

At Truestone, our experience indicates that there are a number of perceived barriers that can sometimes hold back adoption of this very powerful benefits tool. However initial perceptions and the reality revealed by a full and thorough feasibility study are often very different.

A sledgehammer to crack a nut

Very few HR departments are lucky enough to only have ‘nut’ sized issues when it comes to benefits provision, however businesses may quite reasonably ask if employees really want to choose between a little bit more of this benefit and a little bit less of that one. Is a fully flexible scheme going over the top to accommodate all the potential needs an employee might have?

We believe there are two points to bear in mind.

Firstly, you do not have to speculate about whether employees really want to select their own benefits, ask them. As part of our feasibility study we recommend research amongst employees to test what strength of feeling really exists. This helps you determine whether those choices are actually important to employees and which benefits to offer on a flexible basis.

Secondly, if flex is your ultimate destination, you will find that the feasibility study and the planning process will naturally create a number of stages in that journey. The journey will provide your business with answers to some of its most pressing benefits issues.

How much will implementation cost?

It is important to remember that flex is not just about additional cost. There are very real savings to be made as well. Some of these are tangible such as reductions in National Insurance payments and lower administrative overheads. These are savings that may continue to be delivered for years into the future.

No business should implement a flexible benefits scheme without an accurate understanding of both the costs and the financial benefits. Like any other strategic change that the business makes, flex will need to demonstrate a positive return on investment. Truestone will help you get to the heart of the financial implications by conducting a full and thorough cost benefit analysis for you.

Lastly, don’t forget the reasons you might have considered flex in the first place. Implemented with careful consideration it has the potential to deliver a powerful competitive advantage in your market; increasing employee engagement and retention at all levels. These benefits are often less measureable but are real none the less.

Will our IT systems cope?

One of the biggest concerns for any business considering flex will be the impact it has on wider company resources. In particular how well your IT resources will cope and whether your existing systems will be compatible with new interfaces.

Truestone have the technical expertise to establish the capacity of the systems to cope and produce or receive the required data accurately and on time. We will organise an audit to ensure that the benefit technology interfaces correctly with your existing systems and tell you what effect it may have on system performance.

I don’t have the resources to deliver the launch plan

Truestone will develop an implementation plan for you that will tie together all the areas of the business involved in the launch of flex. We will consider all of the timelines and dependencies to ensure that launch is achievable and how best to utilise the resources you have available. This will include IT and process changes, sourcing competitive benefit providers, keeping you informed of any taxation or legal requirements and most crucially of all designing and delivering employee communications. We will develop a specific communication plan that is tailored precisely to your company structure, hierarchy and employees. This plan will address everything from the language that is used in communications through to the communication media, methods, timing and feedback.

The Truestone flexible benefits consultancy service

At Truestone all our advice and consultancy is totally independent. We are not tied to any particular benefits systems or software. When it comes to flexible benefits we know what a powerful tool it can be but we do not presume it is the right answer for your business.

What we offer is a consultancy service that will give you

An audit of your existing arrangements which will incorporate your strategic goals. This will help to determine whether flex is a good strategic fit with your business and whether alternative solutions might be more suitable
A full financial analysis of the impact of introducing flex. This will take into account the cost of the benefits, the system implications, communications, administration and fees as well as the longer term savings