It’s right that supporting employees through the cost-of-living crisis is currently dominating conversations in the employee benefits space. At the same time, it’s important that organisations maintain momentum driving other strategic priorities such as sustainability and inclusive employee benefits.

For energy provider E.ON supporting employees through the cost-of-living crisis is another way to deliver on its ESG and inclusive agenda through its award-winning employee benefits programme.

Helena Eyre, Reward Consultant at E.ON UK explains how.

“As our collective experience of ESG grows, organisations understand the need to apply environmental and social principles to every aspect of the business, including employee benefits.

From a social justice perspective, the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis has thrown into question the extent to which employee benefits reinforce or undermine an organisation’s inclusive agenda. Linking employer support for health and wellbeing to an employee’s pay grade no longer feels like the right thing to do.

Many flexible benefits schemes include benefits that top environmental concerns such as cars. Concerns that employees share as much as investors and customers. Employers need to review these benefits from an environmental perspective.

Employers that take the time to review whether their benefits offering supports or undermines their social and environmental principles demonstrates an authentic commitment to these issues.”

At a glance

• E.ON is one of the leading providers of sustainable energy in the UK, employing 8,500 people.
• In order to ensure employee benefits and employee experience were better aligned to its business strategy, the company refreshed and relaunched its employee benefits scheme with Edenred.

The new scheme, focused on delivering smart, sustainable, personalised and truly flexible benefits, now gives colleagues access to the opportunities that best suit their needs at any point in the year with a clearer focus on supporting their financial and physical wellbeing.

In recent years E.ON’s business has undergone a major transformation so it can play a leading role in future energy supply in a world driven by sustainability, digital business and the imperative to serve all parts of the community.

While the company already had a comprehensive and successful benefits scheme with high levels of take-up, the HR and benefits team felt there was a greater opportunity to align the proposition with the way E.ON does business today and in the future.

“When we decided to pause and take stock of what we were doing, we could see a number of areas to evolve,” says Hazel.

The first of these was around flexibility and choice. We live in a fast-paced world and people’s lives don’t stop changing because your annual benefit selection window has shut, so moving towards an ‘anytime’ benefits offering was top of the list.

Although we had a platinum benefits offer, there was a sense that not every employee understood the value of what was on offer to them.

There was also a perception that some categories of benefits such as transport and health were only there for employees in the higher grades of the company, so we needed to address that.

And as a company whose whole purpose is focused on sustainability, we wanted to better reflect that through our employee benefits proposition.

Last of all, we wanted to improve the ability for every employee to understand and manage their own benefits selection, without the burden of having to call someone in the HR team.”

Building the proposition 

One challenge facing E.ON as it considered these changes was the nature of its employee population.

The number of colleagues working as customer service agents, in the field as meter readers, or in other areas such as street-lighting or EV installation, dwarfs the number of higher salary or office based employees which total around 300. Of the total population, 3,500 people don’t have access to the core systems or E.ON email addresses as they are field-based in a new part of the business.

“We were mindful in making changes that we had to ensure our benefits had universal appeal. Also, when we had made those changes, we needed to be clear about how we would engage people who aren’t so easy to reach,” says Helena Eyre, Reward Consultant.

In order to create clear alignment between employee expectations and the new proposition, the benefits team consulted with leaders across the business units to build a clear idea of what was working and what we needed to change. They also undertook a detailed analysis of the existing benefits proposition to identify those which were popular and those which did not need to be part of the future mix.

“To drive the project, we put together a cross functional team which included everyone from internal comms to IT, pensions, payroll and legal who input into the planning and change process.

At this point in the process, we really appreciated the support and challenge from Edenred UK who helped guide us on everything from setting realistic timeframes to sense checking what was deliverable,” says Hazel.

A new brand, a new proposition: MyBenefits+ 

In February 2021, the new benefits proposition was ready for launch, badged MyBenefits+, a name suggested by the employees themselves.

“By the time it came to the launch, we really felt we had put together a completely fresh offering which was fully aligned to who we are as a business and our employees. 

Showing it had evolved with a new internal brand was an important way of underlining the changes and improvements we had made. We also took a step forward by making everything accessible to employees in one place via the MyBenefits+ portal, including benefits, discounts, and pension information,” says Helena.

The new MyBenefits+ platform allowed many employees to make changes and see the value of their selections at any point of the year with a single sign-in (with the exception of products like pensions and insurance). It also included Edenred’s Total Reward Statements, an easily accessible online module that enables employees to log in and understand the full value of their benefits and rewards package.

A key focus for the scheme was to deliver something which was inclusive for the widest number of employees, regardless of paygrade. With this in mind, the new proposition included health benefits at a wider range of affordable price points, from private medical insurance to cash plans and gym membership. It also included new benefits like MotorSave, a salary sacrifice benefit which saves on car servicing, as well as a more flexible holiday purchasing scheme.

One of the most eye-catching changes, supporting the goal of inclusive and sustainable benefits was the inclusion of a salary-sacrifice car scheme which gave every employee the opportunity to lease an electric vehicle at a range of price points, even if they weren’t eligible for a company car. E.ON also offers employees discounts on E.ON’s Electric Vehicle Chargers to help employees manage travel costs and help drive the company’s sustainability focus at all levels. In addition, a change in the purchase threshold for the cycle-to-work scheme from £1,000 to £2,000 meant more employees could afford an e-bike for their commute to work.

“When it came to the launch, one of our top priorities was to ensure every colleague across the business understood that there was something new in the proposition for them.

So, working with Edenred and our comms team, we segmented our workforce into different groups and tailored the launch communications to them, highlighting the benefits which were most likely to be attractive to them,” says Hazel.

”We paid attention to which channels would best reach each group, deploying everything from messages on the intranet and on TV screens in the office, to ensuring it was covered in weekly briefings for those in the field and physical post to people’s home addresses.”

Objectives delivered

Just over a year since implementation, E.ON is already seeing clear evidence that its newly inclusive benefits scheme is a success.

“It has landed really well in the business. Currently 83% of employees have engaged with the benefit portal across both field and office-based workers. We get positive feedback that it is really intuitive and easy to use and that it reflects what people wanted.

It has also seen gym membership increase by 100% driven by greater take up across all areas of the workforce. Holiday buying has been a particularly popular benefit, with 31% taking this up despite being in lockdown. We have also made this benefit even more accessible by offering it on an anytime basis, giving greater flexibility and enabling employees to purchase the benefit as their circumstances change.

The Total Reward Statements feature has had rave reviews, with employees saying it is easy to navigate and access and is easy to understand. Providing transparency this way around the cost of different benefits funded by the company – like life insurance – not only shows the value of things that people may forget about but reminds them of what we invest in them. We’ve also had minimal queries come to HR or the benefits team as a result of the change and seen a 66% reduction in queries for benefits renewal,” says Helena.

The team at E.ON can also see that their focus on sustainability and inclusion is paying off. 

“Take-up of cash plans has increased by 50% since launch. The EV car-lease has attracted significant interest with 15% registering on the portal. Of these colleagues, just under 10% have opted for an EV car which is inclusive of colleagues from lower pay bands. Also, over 30% of colleagues have purchased the higher cycle-to-work finance option,” adds Hazel.

The new platform also allows E.ON to add new features through the course of the year whenever they are ready, enhancing both the benefits proposition and the overall employee experience with digital pay slips next in line for launch.

“Relaunching the benefits scheme provided us with an opportunity to reset what benefits meant for our employees and demonstrate that they really were for everyone. I am pleased to be able to say that is precisely what we have achieved for our people and the business.”

Hazel Mainwaring, Performance and Lead Consultant at E.ON