Nationwide’s key objective for this project was to enhance their employee benefits uptake and engagement. Despite offering a diverse range of benefits, uptake beyond traditional options – like holidays and pension contributions – was lower than desired. To address this challenge, Nationwide sought to streamline its benefit selection approach and put its employees at the heart of the process.
When it comes to employee benefits, is there such a thing as too much choice? Absolutely not, but for an employee, more choice means more time spent making selections. Between work and life commitments, employees already felt stretched for time and/or budget, therefore it could be argued that it is the employer’s responsibility to guide them in the right direction – it is this concept that was explored within this project.
Client: Nationwide
Duration: 1 month
Role: UX / UI Designer
Platform: Online tool
Nationwide is proud of the wide range of benefits it offers its employees, but unfortunately, outside the usual favourites like holiday buying and pension, the uptake of their other benefits was lower than they wanted.
Whilst they had an existing benefits platform that had a lot of information about the benefits on offer, many employees simply didn’t ever log in or have the time to comb through long documents.
Nationwide wanted to make the benefits selection process slimmer, faster, and just a bit more fun! I was asked to build a digital tool that would help employees quickly determine which benefits were most relevant to them.
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Using gamification techniques, I created a solution that matched employees with the most relevant benefits. Employees would take a quick personality test that, depending on their answers, would match them to one of seven personality types, each with their own set of benefits. A decision tree algorithm was fundamental in producing meaningful and accurate results and as such I was continuously testing and tweaking the questions to optimise the experience.
Nationwide was also about to launch its new corporate rebrand during this time, so I had to ensure that this new look and feel was reflected. It was the first piece of interactive marketing to use the new brand and as such, there was a great deal of collaboration between the brand team to ensure a consistent aesthetic.
The implementation of the benefit selection tool yielded remarkable results for Nationwide's employee engagement, leading to a benefits uptake of 57%. By addressing the challenge of low participation in benefits beyond holidays and pensions, the benefit selection provided a streamlined and enjoyable selection process. Employees, especially those in frontline retail roles, found the tool invaluable in quickly identifying relevant benefits that were tailored to their needs.
With a focus on User Experience, the tool underwent continuous refinement to ensure optimal usability across desktop and mobile platforms. The decision tree algorithm proved instrumental in generating personalised recommendations, enhancing the overall effectiveness of the tool.
As Nationwide prepared to launch its new corporate rebranding, the benefit selection tool served as an effective platform to showcase the new brand's look and feel, reinforcing Nationwide's commitment to modernisation and employee-centric solutions.
