Communication, communication, communication.

Wouldn't it be amazing if your CEO could talk to every colleague every day and align them around the organisation's strategy and goals and be really clear with them what their role is in that and exactly what outputs and behaviours they are looking for?

Of course, that is exactly what Reward is for; how people are paid, bonused, recognised and rewarded, and what benefits they are given constantly shares and reinforces messages, sometimes not the ones that were intended. At Reward Heads we are experts in communicating your Reward offering to your people and ensuring key messages are positively reinforced. Read on for more hints and tips but please do reach out to us if we can help support you in communicating your Reward Offering.

For example, the organisation says “we are all about delighting customers” but the bonus scheme is purely about profit.

Or “we care about our people; we treat them like family” and then they offer statutory only maternity and paternity benefits.

At Reward Heads we run a lot of strategy sessions with Exec teams figuring out what they are really trying to do with Reward and how this ties into their business goals, people strategy, mission and values, and indeed where it does not.

We asked our Senior Consulting Manager, Jannine Smith, to tell us about recent experiences with clients working on benefits projects. She shared that good communication has probably been the most enlightening and cost-effective solution to enhancing employee benefit experience without necessarily needing to increase costs. The Holy Grail!

She suggested 7 key questions to ask about benefits communications:

1. What is your benefit communication strategy and plan?
2. How often do you promote benefits within the employee life cycle?
3. Do you have an annual calendar of benefit communication?
4. Do you target your benefit communications by segment?
5. Do you link your benefit communication to key life events?
6. Do you tailor your approach and style of communication to your audience?
7. Do you keep things simple and easy to understand and engage with?

Targeting by segment is a really interesting one and builds on the idea that we do not all want the same stuff and that our life stage may be an influence on this. Just ask anyone who has tried to talk pensions to many 20-year-olds.

Whilst we are always hesitant to put people into 'buckets' or stereotype, the so-called 'generational cohorts' like Millennials, Generation X and Gen Z can be useful in thinking about how we get our Reward messages across.

Dr Alexis Abramson, an expert in 'generational cohorts', says we define generations because “when you are born affects your attitudes, your perceptions, your values, your behaviours” whilst we are all individuals. In other words, you wouldn't treat a 60-year-old the same way would a teenager, so having these cohorts gives us a rough idea of what different age groups might want and need.

She says the key difference between all these cohorts are the different methods of communication they use. Where the silent generation and baby boomers had to rely on face-to-face relationships and are as a result more “engaged” in their real-life communities, the younger generations have social media for that, and create their communities online instead.

Many of our clients have large Gen Z employee populations - those born between 1997 and 2012 so in their teens and twenties. They are potentially our most demanding or expectant in terms of benefits and wellbeing and also our potential talent pool for the future. As such they are a key focus for attraction and retention.

For Gen Z, what are their expectations on benefits and wellbeing more broadly and how can that shape our communications?

• Expectations of immediacy - there is little point telling them about something that you are thinking about for next year
• Fairness and Equity - they expect policies and processes to be fair and speak to diversity and equality
• Link to company values and culture - they expect everything to tie up particularly around areas such as economic, environmental and social conscience
• Clear, simple understanding and processes - think “one click” - they can lose patience with unwieldy processes and apps
• Digital interaction and social media friendly, so intranets and email alone won't do it - how can you use Instagram, YouTube, TikTok

As a Gen X with Gen Alpha children, I know I have a lot to learn!

Another lens we need to consider communications through is ensuring that they are truly accessible to all of our audience. Accessibility to an individual depends on their situation, any language restrictions or disabilities, if they have one, the format, and the content included. Different people will need different help to engage with the same communication.

There are lots of great resources out there to help:

• Scope, the Disability Charity, publish a Beginner's Guide to Digital Accessibility - guidance on how organisations can make their digital communications more accessible to people with a range of disabilities
• Scope and UK Government publish guides to plain English which can make text easier to read for people with lower literacy levels, non-native English speakers, those who find it difficult to understand figurative speech, and people with learning disabilities
• Microsoft Accessibility Checker can highlight accessibility issues in your documents
• Hemingway Editor can highlight readability issues which can then be edited to make your communications easier to read

It can be as simple as using a readable font - at least 12-point Arial - avoiding jargon, and breaking up text. If your communication contains pictures, make sure there is accompanying alternative text. If it contains video, make sure that there are captions and a transcript available.

And did you know that 3 million people in the UK are colour-blind: 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women. So that great traffic light you put in your bonus communication on how the company is going against target is not going to make a lot of sense - perhaps write R on red and so on?

Our observation is that a huge amount of work can go into launching benefits but that the value can be lost in poor communications. And a poorly communicated bonus scheme, designed to motivate and align, can fall flat or even lead to negative outcomes. And we have even seen organisations awarding pay rises that have gone down like the proverbial lead balloon due to poor communication when the opposite was the intent.

Communication in Reward is so important. Reward can be a fabulous tool in attraction, retention, development, alignment to values and behaviours, motivation and drive, ensuring wellbeing, and engaging. But it can also be missed, misinterpreted or not understood.

At Reward Heads we would love to help support you in communicating your Reward offer. Please let us know how we can.

Victoria Milford - CEO