9 powerful strategies used by global firms for high-impact reward communications
Becky Hewson-Haworth is an employee reward communications consultant who works out the hooks, angles, words and strategies to connect your employees with their rewards.
Global brands are taking employee reward communications to new levels with powerful stories that engage their people with their total rewards. How do I know? Because, over the past few years, I’ve written communications for a large number of worldwide businesses through one of my agency clients.
Now, I’m giving you the inside track on what makes these leading companies’ reward communications so exceptional. With tips to help you adopt the same tactics in your business, no matter the size.
Read on to find out how leading global businesses:
Clarify their reward communications challenges and goals
Set reward communications budgets
Set big, hairy goals
Establish clear stories and messages
Think about their audience
Create a reward communications brand and tone of voice
Use a wide range of channels
Keep their reward communications simple
Strategy 1 - global firms get crystal clear about the challenges they face
Big businesses take stock of the situation they’re in when it comes to reward comms. They start by making sure they’re really clear about the difficulties they face by undertaking research. This can take the form of:
Employee engagement survey results - analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data
Specially commissioned surveys to uncover employees’ views on their rewards and reward communications
Leadership interviews
Stakeholder workshops
The insight from this data feeds into the solutions and sets the direction for the project, including any communication principles. For example, if lots of employees think reward communication has been complex to date, simplicity must be a core principle of the way communication is carried out going forwards.
How to implement this in your business
Find out where you really stand with an honest look at how reward comms are perceived by your stakeholders.
You might get away with analysing employee engagement survey responses and comments related to reward. But this will only give you a partial picture.
Specific research is key here. It’s a worthwhile investment that will set the direction for the remainder of the project and ensure your communication investment is money well spent.
Strategy 2 - big brands set reward communications budgets
Global businesses spend big on reward. And, because they want to leverage this investment, they also put money aside to spend on reward communications.
Think about it - if your business launched a new range of products or services, it would have a decent marketing budget allocated. It’s the same for rewards. Regardless of your organisation’s size.
Consider how much of your company’s budget is invested in your total reward package. In service or consultancy businesses it’s usually the largest single budget line. In manufacturing companies it’s often the second or third largest. Either way, it’s a top budget item.
Depending on the size of your business, you’re likely spending millions on payroll alone. Now factor in all your other rewards - including pension, which will be at least 3% of payroll, bonuses and benefits - and you can see the scale of the investment.
If you don’t help your employees understand how your compensation schemes work, you lose out twice:
By failing to leverage the money you spend on the scheme.
By losing out on the potential performance upside.
Because when employees don’t understand how their incentive plans or performance-related pay works, the money you’re spending isn’t driving the performance your business needs.
The same goes for wellbeing benefits. If people forget they’re there, or they don’t know how to access them, you won’t enjoy the expected benefits. Like reduced sickness absence, lower stress levels and improved performance.
How to implement this in your business
You need a budget to invest in communicating compensation schemes. So take a look at my blog ‘No reward communications budget? Here are the stats you need to build a budget business case’.
Strategy 3 - large companies set big, bold goals
In my previous life as an in-house reward specialist, employee communications were typically last-minute one-offs like: “send out an all-employee email with details of our latest benefit offering.” They were dull, operational and all about what the organisation wanted to tell its employees.
But global brands do a lot more than this. With so much invested in their total reward package they want to leverage its full potential. So they set big, bold reward communication goals and full campaigns with a regular drumbeat of comms to deliver them. There’s no one and done here.
For example, they’ll want to do some or all of the following:
Connect HR, reward and talent in the minds of employees
Build a richer reward experience for employees and leaders
Help managers support employee wellbeing
Enhance employee understanding and attitudes to their reward package
Help new hires understand the full potential of the company’s compensation programmes
Create harmonised, transparent communications that support engagement and retention
Communicate reward in more meaningful and human ways across the entire employee lifecycle
With this level of ambition, entire communication campaigns are created to deliver on multiple fronts. This can include creating reward microsites, producing digital guides and playbooks, creating webinars and videos, email campaigns, newsletters and more.
How to implement this in your business
There’s absolutely no reason smaller businesses can’t have the same ambitious goals. In fact, I encourage it! Because regardless of size, all organisations have similar HR and reward end-goals - to attract, engage and retain.
The key to successfully delivering this kind of multi-point communication comes back to the research you carry out in the first place. Link what your employees want and need with where you want to go as a business and HR department and create goals that speak to everyone. This is absolutely vital if your communications are going to sing. Something we cover next.
Strategy 4 - leading enterprises establish a clear narrative and key messaging
Every project for a global company that I’ve worked on starts with the creation of a narrative. Often forward-looking, each narrative is powerful, inspiring, engaging and unique. Accompanied by an impactful tagline for the campaign and a set of key messages, this copy is the foundation which inspires all the campaign communications.
By reiterating the same messages from different angles, every piece of communication remains on point. A consistent narrative that tells the right story with no conflicting messages.
These narratives often tap into company and HR and reward strategy and business values, helping bring these documents and statements to life. Instead of talking about a career framework, a narrative and key messaging will reframe the conversation in a way that speaks to the audience. Instead of saying, ‘we’re delighted to announce our new career framework’, larger companies will welcome their people to ‘a world of opportunity that empowers our business and its people to thrive and grow together’.
How to implement this in your business
Sure, it’s a bit of marketing spin. But making the benefit to employees clear from the start is far more effective than telling them you’re excited about something. To do this in your business, take a look at my blog post on borrowing brilliance from marketing to elevate your communications and inspire your people.
Strategy 5 - global firms think about their audience(s)
I touched on this earlier in this article but it’s worth diving into more detail because it’s such an important point. Big businesses communicate to their audiences with their audiences’ needs in mind.
It’s a tactic straight from the marketing playbook and it works. Because human beings engage with information when it directly relates to them.
Simply using ‘you’ in your communications is a great starting point. Yet few businesses do this. They spend more time talking about how pleased they are to introduce something new. Much better to grab your audience's attention by telling them what’s in it for them. And by making them feel excited through the way you communicate and the messaging you use.
It’s absolutely vital to understand who you’re talking to, their pain points and goals if you’re going to provide helpful communications.
How to implement this in your business
Employee personas are a great way to segment your audience and understand who they are so you can communicate effectively with them. Find out more in my blog post, ‘Employee personas - what they are and why your HR team needs them’.
Strategy 6 - larger organisations create a defined reward brand
Big businesses understand the power of a brand. That specific set of colours, images, logos and font that tells people who they’re dealing with and evokes certain feelings by using visual cues that hint at what to expect.
These are the same reasons large companies invest in developing a reward brand. Typically tied to the company brand, reward brands provide recognisable visuals that instantly tell employees they’re looking at reward content. Making it easier for people to identify comms and click, read or watch.
Plus, great branding creates a certain look and feel - whether that’s caring, energetic, vibrant, fun or something else entirely. Gift wrapping your very expensive rewards in the equivalent of a plastic bag is a waste of money. You’ll do much better by presenting them in a way that entices and inspires.
How to implement this in your business
You might have capacity in your marketing team to help you build a reward brand. Or you might want to hire outside help. Either way, you’ll need a clear brief which helps your designer understand the colour palette, image or graphic preference and how you want your brand to look and feel.
A good tip is to think of the emotions you want people to experience when they engage with your reward comms. Which comes back to your company brand and the goals you set out at the start of your campaign.
Strategy 7 - global businesses are clear about their tone of voice
Have you ever thought about the way you communicate with your employees in terms of the tone of voice you use? Lots of companies go for ‘warm professional’. But the most successful campaigns align their employee communications with their overall brand tone of voice, which usually aligns to their company values.
One project I worked on was for a global gaming company with a very strong tone of voice which was all about being energetic and fun. By ensuring all their employee reward comms aligned with this tone of voice, the company is sending a message that it truly believes in upholding and applying its culture and values at all times and in relation to all topics.
Why adopt a certain tone of voice internally? Well, for starters, imagine how confusing it would be for employees to see your company’s external communications in a warm, quirky tone of voice only to have any internal communications sound really dry and corporate.
This kind of disconnect hints that the company culture portrayed externally is not the same inside the business. Cut your organisation in half and your company culture should run all the way through the middle - like a stick of rock. The same applies to your tone of voice because it’s a reflection of your company culture.
How to implement this in your business
Have a chat with marketing to see if your company has a tone of voice and style guide. You can use this to inform your internal communications. If not, get in touch with a communications specialist who can run a workshop to develop your tone of voice and create a tone of voice document and style guide for you.
Strategy 8 - global enterprises use a range of technologies and channels
You might be surprised to know that even some enormous global companies don’t have a single online space for all their rewards. But, instead of using their intranet they’re building reward microsites that sit outside the company’s firewall and provide greater flexibility over the design and layout than intranets usually do.
These microsites become the go-to place for all reward information including policies, guides, videos, webinars, modellers and more. With the additional technical capabilities of a microsite, companies can create clever tools that engage their employees with their rewards. For example, modellers that let people estimate different incentive outcomes based on varying performance levels.
With a single digital home for all reward content, companies are investing more in different formats, including video, because they know people will see them. I’ve written quite a few video scripts for different companies and campaigns. Including executive incentive plans and career framework hero videos (exciting introductory videos that create excitement and engagement with a topic). I’ve even come up with ideas and synopses for mini podcasts on a range of reward topics - something I’d never heard of during my 12 years working in reward!
How to implement this in your business
Regardless of where your employees work - desk-based, on the shop floor or in manufacturing or warehousing facilities - digital is definitely the way to go. This could mean:
Using your intranet to its full potential
Building a reward microsite
Creating videos
Building engaging tools to bring your rewards to life
Recording webinars and making them available online
Setting up an app for non desk-based workers to access through their personal smartphone.
To do this, you’ll probably need specialist support. For smaller firms with more limited budgets, it’s wise to start by creating a single online space for your rewards. Then build from there.
Strategy 9 - big businesses keep it simple
Complexity is one word that comes up again and again when people discuss their employee rewards. This lack of understanding is poison to reward schemes. It stops people engaging, reduces the effectiveness of performance-related compensation schemes and prevents people from taking up their benefits.
Keeping language simple is key. Avoid jargon, legalese and latin. This is particularly important when you’re communicating complex topics like incentive schemes, share plans, pensions and taxes. The second your employees struggle to understand, you’ve lost their engagement. By keeping it simple you’ll make sure everyone understands what you’re saying, giving you a better chance of connecting your people with their rewards and inspiring their performance.
A big part of this is using visuals as well as words to illustrate what you’re communicating. This is where a designer comes in as well as someone who’s good with words and understands reward to create the perfect unison between copy and graphics.
Remember - nobody ever reads something and complains it’s too easy to understand!
How to implement this in your business
Not got someone in-house who’s as strong on communication as they are on reward? Then think about hiring support. A reward communications consultant can deliver every strategy on this list. Helping you make the most of your employee reward package and spend and freeing up your time for other priorities.
Turn strategy into action
If you’d like to apply any of these strategies in your business, get in touch for a free, no pressure conversation. You can book a 30-minute slot in my diary or drop me a line at becky@clarioncallcomms.co.uk.