How Medichecks used Perkbox to become an employer of choice

Ticking all the boxes

With a trusted, family business type culture, the Medichecks leadership has always been keen to support employees wherever possible. In 2020, when Victoria Holden took on the Head of People role, she conducted an engagement survey via Best Companies. The results saw Medichecks classed as one of the top 20 Health and Social Care companies to work for. However, Victoria was keen to use the survey to get a better idea of what people wanted. She says:

“One of the things that came out really strongly was the various benefits people were looking for. They spanned from wanting discounts to that wellbeing piece. We already offered them free blood tests, but that was only one part of the health puzzle.

One of the reasons we looked at Perkbox was because it had that holistic approach to benefits. It ticked all the boxes for the things our colleagues were telling us they wanted. As a small people team, having something that did everything for us in one space was very appealing. We were also able to launch it really quickly, so it was a quick win for us.”

A healthy £14K saving…

Through a combination of Victoria’s internal efforts, and the fact that Perkbox gives people what they’re looking for, Medichecks employees are hugely engaged with the platform.

“We know that our employees are engaged with the platform — 99% of people have activated their account and one of the reasons is we very much make it part of the induction for people. It’s very important for people to know what benefits are there for them.

They love the discounts and it’s something that they really wanted. Over the last 12 months we’ve actually had £14,000 worth of savings which is incredible.

One of the other things they love is Flexi Perks. It obviously gives them choice…they love being able to choose what they want.”

…and a strong culture of appreciation

Another reason for the high engagement is that Medichecks use our recognition feature for their monthly awards. As well as giving employees another reason to visit the platform, it keeps company values at the forefront of their minds, as Victoria explains.

“We use Perkbox as the place where we do all of our nominations and thanks for colleagues. When a colleague nominates someone, they choose which of our values it aligns to. Every month, we have a Colleague Communication Session that everyone’s invited to. During this, we go through all the nominations so everyone gets their moment of fame, and then we’ll announce the winner.

The winner each month receives Reward points — again giving people the opportunity to choose what they want to spend it on.”

Becoming a multi award-winning employer

Perkbox has become an essential part of the Medichecks employee engagement toolkit. Victoria reveals the positive impact covers things like time, money and becoming an employer of choice.

“The biggest metric of success was through the engagement survey we did the year after implementing Perkbox. Our results had taken us up to the next level. We were now classed as a 1 Star Company, we were in the Top 10 Health and Social Care companies to work for, the Top 50 East Midlands Companies to work for and Top 100 SMEs to work for in the UK.

That was very telling and we could see in the survey that benefits were no longer something our colleagues were telling us to work on.

Another key thing has been the time and cost savings. There’s no way that we could have all of these different things — the wellness content, the awards, the discounts — if it wasn’t for Perkbox. It’s doing it all for us.

I also mentioned we give free blood tests to our colleagues. We’ve now put that on Perkbox as well, so everything’s in that one space. And we’re exploring partnerships with some of your partners, for example salary sacrifice schemes.”

A steady circulation of engagement and innovation

The Perkbox offering goes beyond benefits and rewards. We provide regular engagement communications and in-depth reporting, which again saves time for the business.

“The marketing content has made things easy for us, the reporting is so easy, and the Customer Success team has also been brilliant — I cannot fault them,” says Victoria.

“Not only has Perkbox helped our colleagues' engagement, which makes us a competitive company to work for — but we’ve been able to do that in a very easy way.”

Victoria was also pleased with some of the recent platform innovations — the Savings Tracker which shows users how much they’ve saved, and Greeting Cards, which allow them to easily collaborate on celebrations.

“When I log in, it tells me how much money I’ve saved. I love that because it will really help drive engagement with the platform, and I don’t need to do a lot!

And now we can send Greeting Cards to people, they’ve been sending them on work anniversaries and birthdays. I really love the way you can add other people and they can sign the card together.”

Keeping Perkbox at the heart of their EVP

Victoria has been delighted with the impact of Perkbox for both employer and employee. She sums up by stating that our platform will remain a central part of the Medichecks EVP.

“What keeps us partnering with Perkbox is the fact it’s a holistic, total reward platform that ticks all the boxes. It offers everything in one place and is really easy for us to administer and our teams to use. We’ve had outstanding support when we’ve needed it, and the pricing is very competitive too.

When you look at what you’re getting, the benefit far outweighs any cost. It’s certainly going to continue to be part of our EVP because our colleagues love it!”