Employee Benefits Driving Corporate Performance -- A White Paper

In today抯 economy, companies of all sizes are facing a number of challenges that require urgent action. Health care costs are rising, pension obligations are growing and top talent is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit in the rebounding job market. Among the most significant business trends, competitive pressure on American workers is increasing at a rapid pace as offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) becomes more effective in performing traditional American jobs at much lower costs. The fundamental challenge for human resources managers is to re-invent employee benefit programs to deliver higher performance at a lower cost.

The process of re-inventing employee benefit programs begins by developing a portfolio of employee benefits that maximizes total economic value for employees, while minimizing employer investment. In other words, there are a number of very attractive and financially rewarding benefits that employers could provide their employees. One of the most effective, yet highly underutilized, benefits is the employee discount program.

Few employers offer their employees an employee discount program, even though it抯 economic value to employees is very significant, while it抯 cost is very low. These programs are either developed and maintained by internal human resources staff, or outsourced to managed employee discount programs (such as www.EmployeeHelper.com). Based on case studies conducted by EmployeeHelper.com, companies that have deployed managed employee discount programs with a wide variety of negotiated discounts, the net effect for employees can be equal to a compensation increase of over 5%.

Considering the fact that employee discount programs are basically free for employees and their employees, the use of this program is expected to grow significantly across the marketplace. In an economy where competitive advantage is becoming increasingly tied to human capital, enhancements to employee benefits represent a growth opportunity for all business.

Please visit http://www.employeehelper.com for more information about employee discount programs.

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Five Business Benefits of Employee Training Programmes

Copyright 2006 Train In A Day

Understanding the business benefits of an employee training programme can sometimes be more of an art than a science.

How do you measure success?

How can you convince your colleagues to make the investment?

As a result, it can sometimes be difficult to convince management teams of the need for forma people investment.

Like any business case, we need to persuade others through demonstrating the benefits or, as salespeople would say, 揥hat抯 in it for them??
This article highlights five major benefits of employee training:

Let抯 take a look:

1. Impact on bottom line

Successful employee training delivers improvements in employee performance which, in turn, creates a better performing business and an improved bottom line.

Research conducted has suggested that, where training programmes are effective, employee productivity can increase by 230 per cent.

You may wish to highlight job roles within your organization where employee performance has improved using measurable variables that will demonstrate your business case for further investment.

By focusing your business case on the objectives of the business you will not only be preparing a persuasive proposal for the rest of your management team but will also be steering your training plans towards the areas of greatest benefit. Hence, ensuring the greatest return on investment for the project.

2. Staff retention

Want to spend more training recruiting staff?

Thought not.

Training increases staff retention which will save you money.

Instead of paying recruitment fees, re-investing in training, loss of management time why not treat your people as your number one asset?

Invest in their development and they will receive a return your investment many times over.

In some companies, training programs have reduced staff turnover by 70 per cent and led to a return on investment of 7,000 per cent.

Incredible, eh?

3. Improved quality and productivity

Training that meets both staff and employer needs can increase the quality and flexibility of a business抯 services by fostering:

?accuracy and efficiency
?good work safety practices
?great customer service.

You know the benefits of quality assurance programmes. Now buy in to the benefits of employee training programmes!

Can you put a value onto a lost customer?

How about a health and safety issue?

If you wish to gain a simple but meaningful measure of employee training programmes take a look at the consequences of NOT investing in your people.
Often, we only make investment decisions when we can visualize the effects of not taking action.

If you抮e not yet convinced by the benefits of training, take a look at where your company has suffered from a lack of improved skills and try calculating the TRUE cost of those incidents.

4. The flow-on effect

The benefits of training in one area can flow through to all levels of an organization.

Over time, training will boost the bottom line and reduce costs by decreasing:

?wasted time and materials
?maintenance costs of machinery and equipment
?workplace accidents, leading to lower insurance premiums
?recruitment costs through the internal promotion of skilled staff
?absenteeism.

If you take a closer look at those companies which sit within the 慣op 100 Companies?to work for you will notice something which runs through each of them.

You can抰 measure it but successful companies have a 慶ulture?which runs throughout them.

The benefit of this culture is a happy, innovative and successful workforce.

A positive culture only comes through a respect for and an investment in your people.

Start cultivating a progressive culture within your business today through employee training programmes and other forms of people investment.

5. Remaining competitive

Businesses must continually change their work practices and infrastructure to stay competitive in a global market.

Technology, previously the main driver of competitive advantage, is progressively taking a back seat to people.

As economies become progressively service orientated, it is the development of people that is providing successful businesses with long-term sustainable success.

Training staff to manage the implementation of business strategies, improvements to procedures and customer service policies can also act as a benchmark for future recruitment and quality assurance practices.

As well as impacting on business profit margins, training can improve:

?staff morale and satisfaction
?'soft skills' such as inter-staff communication and leadership
?time management
?customer satisfaction.

So there we are. Start thinking now about how investing in the skills of your people can benefit your business to make more money, save money or save time.

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Extracting Real Benefits From Travel & Expense Management

For your company to truly reap the rewards of a structured corporate travel policy, it must focus on one thing above all else: compliance. Unfortunately, while the explosion in convenient Self Booking Tools gives you a lot more freedom of choice, it also makes compliance a great deal more challenging. Any technology that supports an increase in compliance to policy has merit; it will save your company money and bring back the benefits of corporate travel.

Today's diversity of choice in self booking tools makes compliance through denial of access a very difficult protocol to enforce. What you really need is a funnel through which 100% of your company's travel activity must pass. In the corporate world, the only viable funnel is the payment mechanism ?getting paid is the ultimate leveler. If you use a corporate credit card as the payment mechanism, supported by an expense management solution, and suppliers who can report back to you a reasonable level of data, you stand a very good chance of supporting the compliance objective.

A compliance-friendly Expense Management Solution (EMS)
An expense management solution which processes card transactions (and possesses decent workflow) requires the traveler to personally justify all deviations from policy to their supervisor ?on a transaction by transaction basis. Just as importantly, the warehoused individual transactions give the corporate travel manager the opportunity to conduct spend analysis and examine individual and aggregate behaviors.

You might argue that this is after the act, but it still encourages compliance. As per all card based procurement systems, if an employee consistently deviates from company policy, they may be penalized (e.g. card withdrawal, official warning, employment termination, etc.). The threat of negative repercussions acts as a deterrent to card misuse, thereby increasing the level of compliance.

The benefits of policy compliance

80% of the business case benefits of corporate travel will come from travel policy compliance. This requires:

?Sound policy and procedures;
?A comprehensive communication strategy;
?A gate through which all activity can be channeled (the card and the expense management solution); and
?Tools to monitor and measure compliance.

There will also be some peripheral benefits to be gained from an expense management solution in the pre-trip phase:

For instance:

?The traveler can use the work flow component of an expense management solution to create travel request and approval records rather than using something less structured like emails.

?Using the expense management solution, the traveler can create a 揷ommitment?record at the time of booking for subsequent matching of the credit card transaction when it comes through.

?You can obtain a download of trip data from your TMC, and travelers can seek to match that against trip card transactions, thus reducing the quantity of manual entries required of the travel coordinator.

?The expense management solution provides travelers with a real-time log of commitments beyond what might be recorded in a personal diary.

How does it apply to your company?

In looking at the business case for this exercise, you do need to closely examine a number of factors to determine the benefits you will actually realize:

?There are no industry-wide standards, and the market tends to work as a series of isolated closed provider loops ?your efficiencies will be greatest if can conduct your business entirely within one closed loop. It is up to you to determine if you can obtain maximum purchasing power in this environment.

?The importance you place on understanding the cumulative value of travel booked but not yet paid.

?The extent to which you can source the data you require from your travelers via a TMC data feed and, consequently, the keystroke savings you can achieve for those travelers.

?The productivity gains you will obtain for your travelers by virtue of them setting up trip details in your Expense Management Solution (EMS) at time of booking rather than at time of arrival of the card transaction.

The combination of Electronic Travel Management and Expense Management is an important subset of eProcurement, and it is subject to the same challenges facing all eProcurement initiatives over the past 10 years ?industry standards, supplier participation, and a seamless marketplace. Until these elements are all in place, greatest advantage will be gained by companies that focus on the big picture of where they can achieve maximum purchasing value with reasonable purchasing productivity ?usually based on being able to perform an analysis of spend patterns and behavior.

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