Only 58% of employees, on average, said the organization’s communications have helped them to gain a good understanding of their retirement savings plans. Sixty-four percent said the same about the communication around their benefits plans. These statistics should be a wake-up call for plan sponsors.
“People don’t understand their retirement plans. They are not really sure if they are saving enough for retirement, and there is quite a high percentage who don’t know if they are assuming the right amount of risk,” says Crawford. “I don’t think organizations are getting enough return on investment for the money they spend on retirement plans because they are not investing the energy and effort into communicating those plans.”
Our Top 30 organizations are doing better in this area, with 75% of employees, on average, saying the communication around their retirement plans helps them to understand the programs better and 78% saying the same about benefits plan communications.
Much of this data was collected before the financial markets started their downward spiral. One would think that the economic changes would prompt plan sponsors to increase communication around their retirement plans—especially since many members are worried about their plummeting balances. However, Crawford says from what he’s seen, that isn’t the case. “I personally haven’t seen evidence that plan sponsors, as a group, have significantly increased their communication. A lot of them are preoccupied with the financial issues of the plans themselves.”
Additionally, communicating about the company in general—how it’s doing financially and what the goals are for the future—can go a long way toward earning employee trust, an important factor in the success and productiveness of a workforce. “I think transparency and honest communication is a key factor,” says Vachon. “What we have seen in the past is that when our employees trust the management and their actions, the employees will follow. If they trust the management, they are more likely to be engaged.”
Walk the Talk
Programs can be perfectly designed, delivered with finesse and be thoroughly communicated, but if they aren’t supported by the leaders of the company, they likely won’t be valued by employees. “Part of satisfaction on the employee health and well-being side is not driven by expensive programs but by a management team that, in its day-to-day interactions with employees and its own behaviour, supports employee health and wellness,” says Crawford.
Organizations whose senior representatives and management actively support health and well-being have higher satisfaction levels in other areas of the company as well. For example, on average, 81% of employees among the Top 30 organizations said the senior leaders in their organizations take action to support employees’ health and well-being, and 80% said the same about management. They also said the organization’s practices and programs helped them to balance work and personal commitments (76%) and felt their benefits and retirement savings plans met their needs and those of their families (79%). Looking at the national average, only 67% of employees agreed that senior leaders take action to support health and well-being, and when asked the same question about management, the number rose only slightly to 73%.
Although messages about genuinely caring about employee well-being and treating staff with respect are disseminated among management and senior staff in most companies, the data show that following through with this advice is what truly makes the difference. Crawford concurs. “The one thing we learned with the employee health and well-being research is that employees value—and have a strong sense of attachment to—employers that demonstrate, through programs and behaviour, that they care about their employees’ health and well-being.”
Create the Culture
Yet wellness, retirement and benefits programs are just some of the factors that come into play when gauging employees’ overall satisfaction with the company. The average level of overall employee engagement for the organizations on our Top 30 list was 77% whereas the national average was only 65%.
Deen Maharaj, director of HR with G&K Services Canada (No. 15), says the company culture goes a long way in keeping employees engaged. “It’s about treating people with respect. It’s when a corporate person visits a field location and makes it a priority to speak to the people. The office staff isn’t elitist to the production staff. If a plant employee needs to see the general manager, you know him or her by first name and feel empowered to walk into the general manager’s office. That is the kind of culture people want to work in.”
Geoff Deleplanque, chief administrative officer of OTIP, couldn’t agree more. He says, at his organization, it’s the little things that make a big difference. “We have the pension plan and annual education sessions; we have similar benefits programs as other employers. But for the most part, it is really the feel of the organization that connects with our employees. Employees hear at every employer that they are the No.1 asset, but the difference here is, it actually feels like that. They see there is a connection between those words and the programs that are in place and the overall culture.”
Creating an inclusive corporate culture and increasing communication around wellness, benefits and retirement programs means more than being named in our Top 30 ranking. Taking these actions will help get your employees—and your workplace—into shape.
For additional profiles and more on this topic, go to www.benefitscanada.com/extras
April Scott-Clarke is assistant editor of Benefits Canada.
april.scottclarke@rci.rogers.com
> click here for a PDF version of this article, which includes the Top 30 ranking
© Copyright 2009 Rogers Publishing Ltd. This article first appeared in the June 2009 edition of BENEFITS CANADA magazine.