- Half of employers are planning to develop an Employer Value Proposition (EVP) to support overall employee experience because it impacts engagement, recruitment and retention
- 72% of international employers have a single benefits strategy, or are working towards one
- 77% of employers benchmark benefits with peers
LONDON (14 March 2019) – New research from Aon, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions (NYSE: AON), says having an employer value proposition (EVP) is gaining in importance to organisations. Aon’s Benefits and Trends Survey 2019 shows that 51% of employers plan to develop their ‘employee experience’, or EVP - a significant increase on the 16% of last year.
Overwhelmingly, employers say that an EVP has a positive impact on employee engagement, retention and recruitment, with 65%, 63% and 70% agreeing respectively.
Almost a quarter of employers (24.5%) currently have an EVP in place, yet surprisingly almost a third of those do not communicate it to employees.
Aon’s Benefits and Trends Survey, now in its ninth year, is formed from the responses of over 200 employers of all sizes, from less than 100 employees to many thousands, who work across a broad range of sectors, with 74% of them working internationally. This year, a number of new questions were introduced, including those about an EVP, as well as how employers approach benefits strategy on a global basis.
The survey showed that almost three-quarters of respondents have employees in more than one country; it is striking that 72% of them have a single benefits strategy, or are working towards one. However, the use of technology to deliver benefits seems to be lagging behind, as only 13.5% say they have a single global benefits platform. Over a quarter (26%) are working towards this objective, but 60% have no plans to do so.
Richard Morgan, principal at Aon, said:
“Our experience during 2018 was that many organisations have become more joined up in designing and managing their benefits in the context of an overall EVP. For example, wellbeing, and particularly mental health, are key to the overall employee experience for many organisations, so it’s important to align benefits to support mental health strategies as well as to communicate them effectively to employees. When it comes to communications, it is likely that employers don’t feel this is successful. They say the biggest challenge they have with benefits is communication, yet most have an annual communications budget of less than £5k.”
Richard Morgan continued:
“Fascinating too, is that 77% of the survey respondents benchmark benefits with their peers. On top of this, there’s also a great deal of employer interest in benchmarking their whole approach and strategy through Aon’s Benefits Score, which takes into account the overall business, people and communication strategies alongside employee demographics analysis.
“Employers often use internal and external pay and benefits benchmarking as a core part of their strategy to help decision making. However, this is an important part of an EVP which employers are seeing as increasingly effective to meet the unique needs of both the business and its employees."
More information can be found in the Aon Benefits and Trends Survey 2019.
Notes to Editors
About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.
Aon announced in May 2018 it will retire the business unit brands of Aon Benfield and Aon Risk Solutions, which follows the retirement of the Aon Hewitt business unit brand in 2017. This move was designed to increase the rate of innovation across the firm and make it easier for colleagues to work together to bring the best of Aon to clients. Aon has five specific global solution lines: Commercial Risk Solutions, Reinsurance Solutions, Retirement Solutions, Health Solutions and Data & Analytic Services.
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