Enhance your EVP

Your employees are the lifeblood of your business. Being able to hire the best people — and keeping them with you — is what’ll give you the edge over the competition.

But since the pandemic, employee wants and needs have changed a lot. So how can you make sure that you’re offering them the things they really want?

Over the last few years, businesses are turning to Perkbox to pep up their employee package. Our benefits and rewards platform helps them enhance their EVP, so they can attract and retain the best talent.

Want to know how? Take a look below at what they have to say!

Marugame: Cooking up a winning package

Marugame Udon is a Japanese restaurant with over 1,200 stores across the globe. They launched in the UK in 2021, with a rapid expansion plan that saw them open ten units in a year.

The combination of being a new business and starting during the COVID-19 pandemic meant Marugame had a fairly small employee offering, as Head of People Nicki Sahota explains.

“We basically started everything from scratch. As a business we had lots of challenges. Our staff turnover wasn’t great… people were a bit overwhelmed and stressed at work. Attracting people to work for a business they’d never heard of was a big challenge as well. So those were a few of the reasons we were looking at Perkbox.”

 

The ability to support people with their physical, mental and financial wellbeing was especially important, as this was now a top priority for employees. Nicki says it’s something appreciated by people at all levels:

“The world was a funny place — we were just coming out of COVID. The challenges that our teams were facing were heightened. As a new business we didn’t have anything to offer.

I can tell you our CEO absolutely loves the wellbeing offering, and I do myself as well! We’ve got really positive feedback from that.”

 

With 93% usage, the launch of Perkbox across Marugame has been a huge success so far, with Nicki seeing a genuine impact on the business,

All of our people metrics have improved drastically over the last 6-12 months. For example, we managed to hire 500 people in the last 12 months, in the middle of a recruitment crisis. We recently did a pay and benefits survey and overall our teams were very happy, and our staff turnover has more than halved...”

 

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Trayport: Elevating their EVP

Trayport is a technology company providing solutions for global commodity markets. With over 30 years’ experience, the company is one of the leading players.

Rewards Manager David Glennon says the fast-paced culture across the business is why benefits and rewards are such a key part of the company’s EVP.

“Our employees expect a lot — it’s a fast moving, competitive environment. We recognise the importance of having a really competitive and compelling benefits package as a technology company.”

 

One of the key challenges for Trayport — as with many businesses — was helping their employees with the cost of living. While they already had a strong financial wellbeing programme, David wanted to go further, and Perkbox’s discount platform was ideal.

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“There’s a common challenge around the cost of living. We’ve had a financial wellbeing programme for the last few years where we offer things like mortgage broking and financial information. But we also wanted to provide new ways for people to save on the daily spend or special purchases.”

We’ve had almost £100,000 of total savings in the last 12 months, which is super high and represents a really, really good Return on Investment for us. That includes £8,000 of savings on gift cards alone, which just goes to show people really are using it and it’s making a meaningful impact.”

 

Trayport employees have been naturally engaged with Perkbox (with an impressive 82% engagement rate). David explains how his team has driven this further.

“Getting people to join on Day 1 is key. We include this as part of our induction — one of the first three things for people to do is download the Perkbox app, and that’s really worked well for us.”

We also find ways to embed Perkbox into what’s happening around us. For example, we recently had a Tesco express open within our building, so we ran a competition to see who could post the best photo of their Tesco meal deal, and gave away some Reward points. We saw a huge uplift on the platform for that week at very little cost to the business.”

 

With an impressive 82% engagement rate, the platform is a core part of the Trayport EVP. For David, it’s another tool to help him attract and retain the best talent.

“We’re already doing a lot in terms of core insurances and pensions. But to meet employee expectations, I think something like Perkbox helps us elevate to the next level.”

 

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Monica Vinader: Using Perkbox to become an employer of choice

Monica Vinader is a global jewellery brand dedicated to creating luxury jewellery from sustainable materials. They have over 250 employees across the UK, USA, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.

With a workforce spread across three continents and time zones, the business was keen to find a rewards and benefits platform that worked across borders. Louise Sparkes, Senior People & Culture Manager, says Perkbox’s ability to provide something for everyone was a key selling point.

“It was really a case of us looking for a solution that meant everyone had access to the same thing, wherever they are, without needing particular levels of access.

The discounts and freebies helped make people’s money go further. We have people of all ages across the whole workforce. Some people are buying a house and want furniture or bigger purchases. For younger staff it may be the smaller perks, so we do see a real range.”

 

One of the key behaviours Louise and her team try to drive is “celebrating successes”. Combining their internal engagement efforts with Perkbox’s recognition system has been a winning formula. Not only has it enabled line managers to give people appreciation, but the key element of peer-to-peer recognition has also taken off — with over 1,200 recognitions sent in less than 18 months.

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“We wanted to find a way of celebrating everyone’s successes and bringing that to public attention within the company. Immediately we saw that people were really engaged — giving recognition to each other, commenting on posts.

“Peer to peer recognition was really important to us, so that people had a voice and felt seen by their colleagues. Straight away we saw lots of posts coming through — people using it to celebrate the little things like birthdays, not just work related. It’s really helped with building that culture across the whole business and it’s people’s go-to now.”

 

Louise sees the Perkbox platform as a “really crucial” part of the Monica Vinader Employee Value Proposition (EVP), saying:

“It definitely comes up a lot more when we ask people what they enjoy about working at Monica Vinader. For example, we run a pulse survey about wellbeing and quite often you get feedback from people saying they really appreciate the benefits package they’ve got. When people leave us reviews on Glassdoor it tends to come up as something they’re really happy they get.”

 

And while it's well appreciated by existing employees, it’s also something that’s used as a talent attraction tool — a key aim for all growing businesses.

“It goes out on any comms to candidates, it’s on our career site. We speak to candidates about the experience of being part of Team MV and what that means. It’s an integral part of our benefits package. I think we're only going to find new ways to utilise it.”

 

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