When Greene King, one of the U.K.’s leading pub and brewing companies, surveyed its more than 19,500 employees, it learned they weren’t happy with how benefits were handled. The company takes great pride in its workforce and believes “Creating a great place for our customers begins by creating a great place to work.”
Since Greene King’s engagement system relied predominantly on paper communications and online formats, they weren’t easily administered or accessed. Greene King commissioned us to come up with an alternative, online solution.
Not an easy task. We had to factor in the challenge of a diverse workforce, 45% of whom didn’t use a computer in their day-to-day work.
We designed and delivered a comprehensive communications tool, entitled ‘the GREENE room’, an online portal that enabled employees to:
- View total rewards and components
- View pay and other cash benefits
- Learn more about the pay and benefits offered
- Access definitions of terms and assumptions used
- Make benefits choices
- Access contact details of providers
- Update ‘Expression of Wish’ form
And we developed several communication tools to help employees learn about the portal:
- Promotional posters, offering a brief overview of the GREENE room, posted in social spaces in head office, using messaging that reflected feedback from the employee survey
- Personalised teaser postcards sent to home addresses announcing the launch of the GREENE room
- Email alerts linking directly to the GREENE room for those that had daily access to a computer that made the portal only one click away
- Laptops placed in the workspaces and warehouses during the enrolment period, providing employees with the opportunity to log on to use the GREENE room
- Face-to face presentations by business development managers to engage workers and answer questions
- One-on-one on-site sessions hosted by HR managers for employees who do not use computers during work, to encourage participation
The result? Of the 2,250 employees we targeted with our engagement campaign, 91% logged into the benefits portal and made self-service transactions. Of this total figure, a remarkable 720 were employees who did not have access to a work computer, but were encouraged to make the effort to log on from home or to access one of the laptops that were set up for the campaign.
The 91% logon rate is a significant achievement, demonstrating the value of taking the holistic approach that combined online and offline methods to target all employees within the group. Importantly, the communication campaign encouraged a self-service environment and secured interaction from the hard-to-reach group of employees who do not have access to a work computer.