Wojciech Dochan
Managing Director
The workplace is changing. There are now more multi-generational employees in the same workplace than ever before, which means that the delivery and design of both employer-paid and employee voluntary benefits is growing in importance.1
A new digital age
In the new digital age where information is quickly shared and compared, employees are coming to expect better work conditions and a greater focus by employers on retaining them for the long term. Employers more than ever understand that they need to provide the right benefits and effectively engage with staff to get the best out of them.
How do employee benefits need to adapt?
This changing employment landscape means that employee benefit platforms also need to change. The days when you needed complex and expensive flexible benefit platforms are over. Digitisation should see employers being given access to simple and affordable platform designs, ones that enable them to provide a range of benefits and engagement tools easily and cost effectively. Currently, however, flex platforms have lots of bells and whistles which means that they also come with charging models that want to constantly upgrade the employer user interface, but if an employer can’t afford it then then they simply can’t have one.
Smart Hive - an innovative solution
There are however new challengers who are responding to customer needs and are introducing solutions that address issues around fairness, flexibility and affordability. Employee benefits provider Busy Bees Benefits are a company just doing that. Their new Smart Hive platform has been developed on the back of their long-standing experience of working with employers in the childcare voucher market.
The technology is scalable for employers of all sizes and can provide staff with direct access to a range of both voluntary benefits as well as any employer funded ones that may be provided. The platform does many of the things that more expensive offerings do such as customization, tiering of benefits and communications access to engagement tools.
The approach adopted by Busy Bees Benefits is to deliver an intuitive, easy to use platform that puts both employers and their employees at its core and recognises that the range of benefits provided need to cater for all generations and life needs. A key element for the platform is that it must help deliver participation and engagement with the benefits being offered and help the business maximise return on their reward spend.
1There are 5 identified generations in the workplace, with vastly different needs: Gen Z – people born after 1997, Millennials – people born between 1977 and 1997, Gen X – people born between 1965 and 1976, Baby Boomers – people born between 1946 and 1964, Traditionalists – people born before 1946
