Once upon a time, benefits worked like this: a HR team or company boss would manually set-up a fixed set of perks and discounts for their team. They would have to negotiate discounts with individual retailers and service providers, while every staff member would have access to the same health insurance policy.

This meant that traditional benefit schemes were often inflexible and therefore incapable of meeting the needs of every team member. Frustrating for HR teams and only sporadically useful for staff. But the introduction of employee benefits platforms solves this problem.

Employee benefits platforms allow individual employees to log in and access and manage their perks, either via an app or on a desktop computer. They are usually presented with hundreds of perks to choose from, such as discounts at a fashion retailer, cinema or restaurant. They can also select different types of insurance, including Private Health Insurance, Income Protection insurance or Life Insurance, for example.

As well as picking and choosing their benefits, it also works as a comprehensive HR management platform. Wellbeing services are usually offered on these services and HR managers can contact their teams about issues related to benefits, holiday entitlement, sick leave, payroll and more.

Meanwhile, rewards programmes can also be set within the platform. Whether that’s related to performance, loyalty or any other type of achievement you see fit to reward.

Essentially, a flexible benefits platform gives both businesses and employees greater control. For example, the content and branding on an employee benefits platform can often be personalised so it looks and performs as a company-specific HR tool.

Hooray’s friendly team give FREE advice about benefits platforms and all the perks you could ever wish to host on them. Arrange a FREE call with one of our advisors and we’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.