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Connection's tips on how to design your benefits scheme

Top Tips: Designing your benefits scheme

A well designed benefits scheme can engage employees and help retain key talent but in the current climate, making your budget go further is vitally important. Making the most of salary sacrifice, tax efficiencies and voluntary benefit options will help, but these can be complicated to implement effectively. So where do you start when designing your benefits scheme?

Engage a specialist provider

A specialist provider can help with all elements of designing and implementing your scheme. They will have a wealth of experience and will be able to advise you on the best approach for your business needs and budget.

You may already be aware that Ceridian has partnered with Vebnet,a market leading benefits provider, to provide an integrated flexible benefits solution that aims to meet the requirements of employees and save you money on your benefits spend.

Clear objectives

Before considering the many options available to maximise the budget, you need to be clear about what the objectives for delivery are. It’s also important to consider the impact of benefits on wider HR policies.

Involve your employees

When designing your benefits scheme, involve your employees. Ultimately, the benefits are aimed at them, so gain their views on what they would like to receive. Whether you use surveys or focus groups, employee input is invaluable in shaping a scheme relevant for your business – both in terms of benefits offered, method of delivery and communication.

Think about your employee population

The same benefits will not be appropriate for all demographics. Whilst it may not be feasible to provide ‘something for everyone’, the benefits on offer should be broad enough to appeal to most employees. When creating your scheme, you need to consider your employee population and also the climate they are working in.

Evaluate

Reviewing the benefits scheme will enable you to optimise your benefits strategy. This could highlight benefits that are no longer relevant to your employees or areas that could benefit from clearer communication.