Legal & General Group Protection has designed and launched a HR Communication Toolkit, which applies strategic internal communication techniques to employee benefits and wellbeing. The goal is to support HR in companies of all sizes – whether clients or not – in better integrating programmes, being more people- and purpose-led, and supporting wider business goals.
A series of supportive educational and training resources will also be rolled out in the coming months, helping employers build the business case for better communication, along with budgets to support delivery.
The toolkit has been developed based on research commissioned by Legal & General Group Protection. The Wellbeing at Work Barometer* asked UK companies and employees about their experiences of wellbeing in the workplace. Using insights from the report, Legal & General’s new HR Communication Toolkit is designed to help employers:
- Integrate benefits into a wider wellbeing programme – ‘Customised communication’ was considered the top way to help integrate benefits with a wellbeing strategy in the workplace, by two fifths of the businesses surveyed.
- Ensure that the programme is purpose-led, aligned with both HR and business goals and measurable – One in three Line Managers said what would help them improve wellbeing support to the team/s they manage was ‘Clear direction from the top on company purpose and values and how wellbeing fits in’.
- Collate and combine data to ensure value creation for people and for business – A third of employers said that the implementation of wellbeing in their organisation would be improved by the ‘ability to more easily share data with trusted external partners (insurers and intermediaries), to gain help in designing and communicating programmes that will be valued’.
Suzanne Clarkson, Managing Director of Coach House Communications, who has 20+ years’ experience in the employee benefits and wellbeing sectors, across external and internal communication disciplines, partnered with Legal & General to design the toolkit and associated material. She comments:
“The need to improve benefit and wellbeing communication was growing pre-pandemic and has accelerated rapidly since, as leaders put human risk on a par with commercial risk. There’s now a load of pressure on HR to ‘do better’ when it comes to communication, but they don’t necessarily have the time, skills or resource. So, it’s really encouraging to now see a provider putting its weight behind this imperative. And doing it in a way that centres on helping employers get much more purpose-led, targeted and effective with their communication, instead of just doing more of the same. The toolkit is designed to prove as useful to an SME looking for communication self-sufficiency, as it is for intermediaries of all sizes looking to widen their consultancy offer to clients.”
The toolkit is available as a free download from the dedicated webpage on Legal & General Group Protection’s employer site.
Jo Elphick, Marketing Director at Legal & General Group Protection, added:
“We have heard from surveys through the years with both employers and employees, that the key to unlocking value from any benefits investment is communication. A common approach has been to do more, and while intranets and other channels have emerged, this continues to be an issue. We have tried to break down and simplify the approach so that employers get this much needed support. It’s a big shift away from traditional provider support on benefit communication, but our feedback and research tell us that it’s much needed as employers strive to get more joined-up, purpose-led and efficient. And in turn, helping their people be well, get better and be supported. Watch this space for more from us on the ongoing support we’ll be providing to help clients and intermediaries consider the toolkit as the basic foundation for all benefit and wellbeing programmes in the future.”
Legal & General employer site HR Toolkit – https://www.legalandgeneral.com/employer/group-protection/hr-toolkit
