Measure your impact

6 performance benchmarks your benefits provider should be tracking for you

rekha — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 05:27:04 +0000

Measure

6 performance benchmarks your benefits provider should be tracking for you

1 September 2023 3:00

Robust performance tracking and benchmarking are essential when it comes to demonstrating return on investment for your employee benefits program. With the right information, it’s easy to show the dollar value your program is delivering for employees. Plus, you will have the data you need to make strategic decisions that help maximise value for your people.

In this sample performance report, we delve into the 6 key performance criteria your benefits provider should be tracking for you.

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What benchmarks tell us about best-in-class employee benefits programs

maxxiab2b — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:50:11 +0000

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What benchmarks tell us about best-in-class employee benefits programs

10 March 2021 4:03

Employee benefits program benchmarks show that organisations could be missing out on financial value in the millions, both for their people and their organisation as a whole. The good news is that there’s a relatively easy way to close this gap.

When it comes to employee benefits, why do so many dollars get left on the table? For the most part, this is because employee benefits programs have been neglected and poorly understood by employees. Both these factors stem from HR teams needing to prioritise other areas ahead of employee benefits. Because employee benefits are highly regulated, with complex tax and compliance requirements, most organisations prefer to outsource to a third-party. The relative success of a program therefore can also rely on the scope and quality of service delivered by the program provider. This in turn introduces a third factor, the capability of employee benefits providers.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that employee benefits programs have slipped down the list of priorities. Human resources is a broad discipline, addressing a wide range of issues to maximise morale and performance of an organisation’s human capital. Added to this, is the fact that HR is often required to be the organisation’s safety net, ready to step in when things don’t go to plan. This combination of a long list of demands with a pivotal role in crisis management invariably means there are things that get neglected. For many HR teams one of these is the employee benefits program and this is particularly the case when they are increasingly being asked to do more with less.

Employee benefits programs are one of five ways an organisation can support their employee value proposition (EVP), the others being Pay, Affiliation, Work Content and Career. Salary packaging, health, work arrangements, and tuition are some of the more common types of benefits available. Individual employees will place different value on these elements and data held shows identifiable trends in preferences based on age and salary. This is why the choice of benefits on offer is an important factor in maximising EVP.

The COVID effect on employee benefits

Since COVID, working from home arrangements have become a more widespread benefit, with many employees looking to work some hours from home in a post-lockdown world. COVID has also had a major impact on other business conditions. Every aspect of the EVP has taken a hit, with the exception of employee benefits programs. As a result, employers and employees are turning back to employee benefits with a different mindset. As all stakeholders explore the opportunity to get more from employee benefits programs, they can become an unsung hero for the HR department.

Measuring the impact of employee benefits

As one of Australia’s largest provider of employee benefits programs, Maxxia is in a unique position to benchmark an organisation’s program against high performing industry norms. In doing so, we reveal interesting insights on the success of an employee benefits program. For example, the number of organisations offering a benefits program varies significantly between industries, with the public health industry topping the list at almost universal adoption. The public health industry also leads the way for employee participation, with varying levels for different organisations in the industry.

Another finding is that the range of benefits on offer has a direct impact on the perceived value and uptake of employee benefits. This is one of the underlying factors in higher participation rates in the public health and charity industries, which can access a wider range of fringe benefits for their people.

Our benchmarking data also reveals distinct trends in benefit preferences for employees within an organisation. Based on their age; those under 30, those between 30 and 45, and those over 45 have distinct patterns in their choice of benefits while there is no significant correlation found between gender and salary packaging choices.

We also know that employee awareness and understanding of a benefits program is a major factor in its level of adoption. This is one of the reasons Maxxia is committed to partnering with organisations to make employee benefits easier to understand and access.

Perhaps the most significant benchmarking insight is how many organisations have an underperforming benefits program or a non-existing one. While Maxxia has a long history of on-boarding organisations with poor program performance and turning programs around, we continue to be surprised by the value employers and employees are failing to realise through their benefits program.

Measure up with Maxxia’s Benefits Assessment

Unlock maximum value from your employee benefits program and ensure that you are measuring up to the best-in-class programs available.

Maxxia can measure the performance of your benefits program by performing a benefits assessment. This complimentary assessment benchmarks the effectiveness of your organisations program against other organisations, across different sectors and within your industry.

If you would like Maxxia to conduct a benefits assessment for your organisation please get in touch – it could potentially uncover insurmountable value for individual employees and even more for your organisation.

Taking confident steps to drive unrealised financial value in public healthcare

maxxiab2b — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 00:17:43 +0000

Measure

Taking confident steps to drive unrealised financial value in public healthcare

26 October 2020

Responding to the complexity and uncertainty of COVID-19 is pushing many organisations to the limit. Even with resources and budget in short supply, healthcare leaders have a simple solution at their fingertips – one that can help unlock unrealised financial outcomes in these challenging times.

Evolving at speed to meet changes in the operating environment has long been the norm for healthcare. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken this dynamic, responsive approach to a whole new level, with senior leaders stepping up to new responsibilities to patients, policy makers and employees.

With their capacity to rise to new challenges already stretched, many health organisations are looking for innovative ways to identify and access unrealised financial outcomes, for their workforce and their organisation. The good news is healthcare leaders already have the magic wand they need to ease at least some of the pressures.

Shining a spotlight on the unsung hero of financial wellbeing

Until now, a salary packaging program might have been seen as a run-of-the-mill feature of an organisation’s employee value proposition (EVP). But those all-important tax dollars saved by each employee could be doing a lot for their households just now, particularly if they’re dealing with redundancies and reduced income. For organisations, the pay-off is a lift in their employees’ disposable income.

What drives program participation

Thanks to the wide menu of options available for salary packaging compared with other sectors, public healthcare organisations generally experience much higher adoption of employee benefits compared with other industries. However, there is marked inconsistency in employee benefits program participation rates across the public healthcare sector with some organsiations reporting as low as 50% and as high as 92%.

As one of Australia’s biggest providers of employee benefits programs, Maxxia captures benchmark data on how incumbent programs for healthcare organisations measure up against industry norms. As we regularly undertake benefits assessments on behalf of new and existing customers, we develop benchmarks on industry best-practice for employee benefits program design and communication. By comparing their range of benefits and engagement approach with some of the highest performing programs in the sector, healthcare organisations can get a clear picture of whether their own participation is all it could be.

“Since transitioning to Maxxia we’ve gone from having a 68% uptake to over 85% uptake,” says Suellen Bruce, Executive Director People, Culture & Communications, Western Health.

“When we went to tender to look at a new partnership, a few aspects of Maxxia’s offering stood out: their communication style, personalised service, easy-to-use technology and their novated leasing program; all these factors made it easy for our people to maximise their salary packaging benefits.”

Maximising unrealised financial value

Not only does a Maxxia benefits assessment offer this benchmark comparison, it also puts a dollar value against participation gaps. With our sector-specific technical expertise in employee benefits, we can provide comprehensive reporting, including robust data on the unrealised financial value that comes from a best-in-class program and a boost in uptake of employee benefits.

By enhancing their employee benefits program strategy and delivery, Maxxia clients in the public healthcare sector have experienced significant improvements in both participation and overall return. On average, organisations have seen a 15% lift in participation across their workforce in multiple benefit categories. Increased participation can also have a significant upside for the organisation through a range of beneficial incentives based on program performance.

Ms Bruce says this can be hugely advantageous to healthcare and other public service organisations, “where you can’t just put salaries up or implement expensive rewards programs”.

“There’s a difference between working for a corporate organisation and a public health service, and a good employee benefits program rewards people who are committed to what they do every day in providing good care to our patients,” she says.

Taking a holistic, value-driven approach to employee benefits program design and implementation has delivered significant monetary benefit to Maxxia clients. At a time when leaders are challenged to deal with the unexpected on a daily basis, such an opportunity to boost investment in their current capacity and future resilience can be hard to turn down.

Click here to learn how Western Health have transformed their employee benefits program to deliver greater unrealised financial value.