Debi’s inside track: why are reward directors struggling to get the technology they really need?

We have an active marketplace for reward and employee benefits platforms. But get reward directors behind closed doors or on an off-the-record research phone call, and you hear that their needs are not quite being met.

Spoiler alert: I do not have the answers on this one, but hopefully it will provide food for thought. There appear to be two main issues, one related to reward and compensation platforms, and one related to employee benefits platforms.

With reward platforms, the issue is that the big HR platforms have the bandwidth to cope with large workforces, even globally should the need arise. But their compensation components are not specialist enough to meet the complex needs we find within reward. When reward directors turn to the specialist compensation platforms there are some great offerings out there, but the complaint I hear is that these players are currently too small (that is not well enough resourced) to cope with the project requirements of rollouts within large and global organisations.

It’s a Catch-22: until they get more clients they cannot grow, but clients are wary because suppliers are too small. Someone is going to have to be brave and take the leap because this sector of the market is set for growth in a world where evermore transparency, dashboards, governance and compensation links to performance is vital.

The key issue is slightly different with employee benefits technology. Here it is about the ability to have ALL elements of an employee’s reward package in one single App or platform without the need to link off elsewhere or open another App or website. Plus the ability for particular benefits to be pushed at employees at the moment of need, rather than having the employee looking through menus of choices.

Just become a parent: the App sends push notifications with benefits and services now relevant to you.
Need a promotion: it starts pushing the learning and development opportunities you may need.
Feeling stressed: it flags up services and support that can help.

The platforms in our industry do not yet offer a consumer-grade experience, but that is what employees are now expecting. There are myriad good reasons for this from employer data, siloed benefits and regulations around pensions and insurances.

We are integrating more into reward and benefits packages, from Pay As You Earn, to lifelong learning and scheduling your own time and place of work. These new forms of reward and working will need a very different mindset because they will be the catalysts to change, from platforms being the deliverers of reward and benefits, to fundamentally changing the very nature of reward and benefits.

Prepare to be disrupted!

If you want to keep up with the fast pace of change and challenging conversations on tech and data and how these are disrupting reward and benefits, then register to join us at the REBA Innovation Day in London on 28 November 2019.

The author is Debi O'Donovan, director at REBA.