FLEXIBLE BENEFITS
Cisco launches online benefits portal
Cisco, a supplier of networking equipment and network management for the internet, has launched a new online benefits package for its 2,500 UK and Irish employees. The scheme is called i-Benefit@Cisco and is designed to allow employees to interact and enroll in all their benefits.
Cisco chose to work with Thomsons Online Benefits to implement and support the online benefits package.
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What’s on the menu
i-Benefit@Cisco includes core benefits such as pension, life assurance, income protection and holiday, plus additional benefits employees can choose to fit in with their lifestyle. Salary sacrifice was introduced to generate savings on national insurance contributions. The savings were put back into the benefit budget with the addition of company-paid health assessments as part of Cisco’s desire to promote a “proactive health and wellbeing strategy”.
Using Thomsons’ technology, employees can now view their personalised total reward statements and make their benefit selections online.
“The launch of i-Benefit@Cisco has been a great success with 94% of employees logging into the system. We look forward to continuing to develop i-Benefit@Cisco in the future both in the UK and Ireland and beyond,” said Charlie Johnston, HR Director, UK and Ireland.
Transferring to new pension scheme
The scheme also involved a “first” in the UK market by allowing employees to elect to transfer their old pension scheme to the new scheme completely online with no form filling. This online process was “extremely effective”, with 85% of employees completing the transfer process.
A final word
“Our reward strategy is driven by our desire to underpin making Cisco a brilliant place to work and help people understand the full breadth of their reward and benefits package, wherever they work and whatever they do. We wanted to drive some real innovation into the delivery of benefits and feel that we have achieved this, although this is only phase one. Since we are such a diverse and growing business, we also wanted to make the most of benefit efficiencies through salary.” - Charlie Johnston, HR Director, UK and Ireland, Cisco.
Want to know more?
Thomsons Online Benefits says: “Since our inception, our vision has been to transform employees' appreciation and understanding of their reward package and to remove the administration and communication headaches organisations suffer as a result of running them. By combining consultancy and technology we create Intelligent Reward™ solutions which add measurable value to a business.” Further information can be found at www.thomsons.com.