July 29, 2025
Does your employee benefits package have a marketing problem?
Despite many businesses investing heavily in employee benefits, many of these perks fail to deliver their full potential. According to the 2025 Drewberry Employee Benefits and Workplace Satisfaction Survey, just 12 percent of UK employees report being truly satisfied with their benefits package. This gap in satisfaction isn’t always about the benefits themselves, but is often a failure of communication. This latest research shows that while benefits may be in place, just 36 percent of employees fully understand what’s on offer. Even fewer regularly engage with these benefits.
If your team doesn’t know what’s available or how to use it, the perceived value of your benefits plummets. This can significantly undermine retention efforts, especially when 32 percent of employees say they’d leave for a better package elsewhere.
Only 11 percent of employees in the survey said they receive regular communication about their benefits. That means nearly 9 in 10 are left to remember what they were told during onboarding, if they were told anything at all.
How to Make Communication More Than an Afterthought
To truly embed benefits into the employee experience, you need to treat them as a dynamic part of workplace culture, not a static list in an HR handbook. That requires a multi-channel, ongoing communication strategy:
- Regular updates via email, intranet, or chat platforms
- Interactive webinars and live Q&A sessions
- Bite-sized guides and benefit explainers, available on demand
- Access to an employee benefits platform to encourage easier benefits engagement.
Taking inspiration from the marketing “rule of seven” (where a message must be heard multiple times before it’s absorbed), benefits communication must be consistent, not one-off.
Offer Benefits that Reflect Real Needs
Beyond communication, there’s a growing misalignment between what employees want and what’s being offered. Flexible working, compressed hours (such as a four-day week), and enhanced pensions consistently rank high in employee preferences, yet they remain underrepresented in many workplace packages.
To bridge this gap, employers should:
- Use pulse surveys to gather ongoing employee feedback
- Regularly benchmark benefits against industry standards
- Tailor offerings to different demographics within the organisation.
The most successful organisations aren’t guessing what employees value, they’re asking.
Find the Hidden Value in Your Group Policies
Many group benefits like Death in Service or Income Protection come with powerful add-ons – Virtual GPs, mental health support, wellbeing helplines – often at no extra cost. Yet 67 percent of employees surveyed said they either don’t use or aren’t even aware of these services.
This is a missed opportunity both in terms of value for money and employee wellbeing. Addressing it can be simple:
- Include clear access instructions in onboarding and internal portals
- Share real-world usage examples to demonstrate impact
- Ensure HR teams and line managers are equipped to answer questions.
Prioritise Financial Wellbeing
A quarter of employees report they couldn’t last a month on their current savings, underscoring the growing need for financial resilience. However, financial wellbeing initiatives such as Salary Exchange Workplace Pensions (which can actually save your business money) or access to financial planning are still overlooked in many workplaces.
There’s a clear case for change. Employers can start by:
- Educating staff on how Salary Exchange can boost pension contributions or take-home pay
- Offering financial education workshops or one-to-one advice
- Reviewing pay structures to ensure equity and competitiveness
Supporting financial wellbeing boosts employee security and reduces money-related stress – a key driver of productivity loss.
Getting Started with a Benefits Communication Strategy
Ultimately, your benefits are only as powerful as your people’s understanding of them. Even a best-in-class offering can go to waste if employees aren’t engaged with it. Three practical steps can help organisations improve engagement:
- Build a communication calendar
Treat benefits as an ongoing story. Plan touchpoints throughout the year — newsletters, pop-up intranet features, team huddles, and manager-led check-ins.
- Highlight personal stories
Showcase how colleagues have used services like Virtual GP access or mental health support. Human stories make benefits tangible.
- Measure and adapt
Use quarterly pulse surveys or platform engagement data to assess what’s landing, and adjust your communication strategy accordingly.
Don’t Let Good Benefits Go to Waste
With 53 percent of UK employees open to changing jobs in the next year, and a third willing to move specifically for better benefits, the stakes are high. But many of those “better” packages already exist: they’re just not being effectively communicated. In today’s workplace, employee benefits are a key pillar of wellbeing, loyalty, and performance. Making sure they’re seen, understood, and appreciated is no longer optional. It’s essential.