You think you have a great place to work. You look after your employees. They get paid market rate if not above, they get decent holidays and there’s one or two perks to boot.

Why then do they keep complaining about benefits and returning average engagement survey scores? And, how can you afford to tackle this when costs like National Insurance Contributions, National Minimum and Living Wage keep rising and rising?

It may be that you’re underselling your workplace by failing to communicate the range of benefits you offer employees. One way to address this is by clearly communicating your Employee Value Proposition.

An Employee Value Proposition is the ecosystem you create in your company to support employees to do their best work. It is interesting to think about what it might be that motivates your people day to day. In what order of priority would they rank your ecosystem, including salary, colleagues, health insurance, holidays, social events, team meetings, learning and development opportunities, client engagements, working environment, projects, et cetera? What matters most to them and provides meaning in their working life? If you asked your people write a list of what matters to them, first choice to last, you might be surprised by the outcome.

There are two types of benefits in the workplace, tangible and intangible. Tangible benefits are things like pay and holidays. We outline some other examples of tangible benefits you may include in your workplace package in this blog.

The trouble with pay in particular is that there will always be employee grumbles about their salary. Research shows you could give every employee a Ferrari and they would still be dissatisfied. In short, even if we all had a Ferrari we would quibble about the spec or the model instead!

So while offering a competitive tangible benefits package is important, what truly shifts the dial for people is the culture in their workplace. These are the intangible benefits like learning opportunities, regular communication, feedback loops, career development, openness, and trust. How do you nurture and communicate these key facets of a meaningful and rewarding workplace to ensure your people feel motivated to do their best work?

At Johnston Carmichael we can sit down with you and help shape your Employee Value Proposition in three easy steps:

1. Capturing all of the benefits, tangible and intangible, you offer employees.
2. Shaping this into a commitment from you to your people that is clear, meaningful, and easy to understand.
3. Communicating the proposition to your people, being clear about expectations of their commitment to your business in return.

You could be missing a great opportunity to articulate the range of opportunities and benefits available to your employees. Even for those benefits that are mandated, such as pension contributions, it is worth ensuring you are helping your people fully understand the value of these and make the most of them, as we discuss more fully here.

In these challenging economic and social times the return on investment of a clear Employee Value Proposition is clear to see. If we can help you on this journey, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at martin.osler@jcca.co.uk.