Employees have higher expectations than ever when it comes to workplace benefits, driven by an increased focus on wellbeing – particularly post-pandemic – and the desire to see that their employer’s ethics and values are close to their own.
It’s meant a shift in emphasis in terms of employee benefits packages that are now not just something for large corporates but are, thanks to the likes of Mercer Marsh Benefits (MMB), widely available to even the smallest firms, who quite rightly believe that their own employees are just as important as those of the multinationals.
MMB is the employee benefits arm of Mercer UK, part of parent company Marsh McLennan, which delivers health, wealth and career advice to clients globally. Within MMB there are three main segments, the first two are for large and mid-market companies and the third, headed up by Rachel Riley, is the commercial segment, which serves SMEs with between one and 250 employees. With around 12,000 SME clients, the commercial division turns over around $40m a year.
Rachel explained:
I’m passionate about small to medium-sized enterprises and helping them access a broad range of solutions that are affordable for a small company, that can be adapted to suit their individual needs, and that will work for them and their people.
“Each SME is different and by not simply selling products to them, but by listening to them and learning about their prospects, their challenges and their objectives, we are able to offer them the solutions they need. There’s a perception that employee benefits packages are complicated, and so it doesn’t become a priority. With our support, and through building long-term relationships, clients can help us understand what their needs are and then leave it to us to come up with something that works.”
MMB utilises its Elect proposition, which includes areas such as Private Medical Insurance, Critical Illness Cover, Pensions and Group Income Protection, to help build a package that suits each individual client. Whereas the tender process for a large client can take months, the cost implication of that is not feasible for an SME. Instead, Elect is a portfolio of insurers and suppliers who have already been subjected to robust review, covering the whole of the market, and where MMB has identified a range of solutions focused on delivering the best customer service, the best benefits, the best price – not necessarily the cheapest, but taking added value into account.
“Elect is available as our proposition, we’ve done the groundwork and we can reassure our SME clients that they are choosing from the providers we have identified as the best option,” said Rachel. “Then, because although they may be a small company, the insurer is working with us, a large organisation, and so we can pass our purchasing power.
“It’s not a rigid system. If the client already has a good relationship with an insurer that’s not on the Elect panel, they can remain with them if they choose, but on the whole, it is a platform of carefully selected insurers that we know will deliver what we want for our clients.”
Technology allows end users to access a range of support through apps and social media platforms, one-to-one with expert providers or as part of a group, so that they can make full use of the benefits available to them. Insurers often provide a breadth of services, and where the full extent of provision is not clear, MMB can help employers increase their understanding and awareness and pass that on to their employees.
Our aim is to support our clients so that they have options when things are not right,”
said Rachel.
When an SME has a person on long-term sick leave, it has a real impact on a small team. If we can put something in place that gets them well and back into the business, then that’s a real positive.
“Businesses were already facing a lot of challenges and uncertainty, Brexit being a major issue, but then the pandemic, which offered no time for planning, but brought issues around people working remotely, concerned about their health, physical and mental, meant employers had to step in and support them.
“If there was a positive from the pandemic it was that there was a genuine kindness and concern, from leaders and colleagues, to make sure everyone was OK and to help if they weren’t. There were a lot of clients who had benefits in place but were not completely aware of things they had access to, and where there was a gap we could step in to help fill it communicate that to employees.
“The important thing in business now is to retain talent. Employees are a valuable commodity and you have to attract them and retain them, and more and more employees are asking ‘what are you going to give me to make me want to work for you’. They want to know about a company’s values and ethics, not just what benefits are on offer, but why, and we can help put that strategy together and feed it through to the employees.
“While there’s a buzz about being back in the office, particularly for those who haven’t been around people for a long time, there are still people who aren’t comfortable in an office full time and we need to adapt, maintaining what we learned during the pandemic and not enforcing a rigid structure again just because we can.
“A happy and healthy workforce has always been important, but never more so than it is now.”
SME Leader at Mercer Marsh Benefits
Find out more about Mercer Marsh Benefits at www.uk.mercer.com