• Employee benefits provider Zest has partnered with insurance agency PoloWorks and national water retailer Wave to boost competitiveness and better meet employee demand for more flexible and personalised benefits.
• The Zest platform allows employers to choose the benefits on offer, while providing employers data-rich feedback on which benefits are most valued by their staff.
• The enhanced benefits offering will help efforts to attract and retain talent, as the businesses collectively look to increase hires in the second half of the year.

Employee benefits provider, Zest, has today announced a new partnership with PoloWorks, the leading provider of support services to the insurance market in the UK, and Wave, a national water retailer, bringing the ability for more flexible and personalised benefits to be offered to their employees.

The partnership will allow PoloWorks and Wave employees to access benefits all in one place through Zest’s platform. With the technology, employers will now be able choose which benefits the business will offer, enhancing value for money and boosting competitiveness when attracting new talent, as both businesses look to increase hires in the second half of the year.

PoloWorks and Wave are looking to increase their employees’ engagement with their benefits package, by making use of Zest’s data-rich insights. This has been the case with existing clients who are now experiencing 80% engagement with their benefits, well above the average level of engagement. The data can also help employers to understand which benefits are working for which employees, allowing them to tailor benefits for different groups to increase their usefulness and ultimately, take up by employees.

PoloWorks is a leading provider of UK support services to the insurance market providing flexible, responsive and high-quality support to established insurers and start-ups. Zest will help the administration of its benefits, integrating with its existing technology to offer its employees easy access to and more personalisation around their packages, ensuring the business and its employees get the most out of what is on offer.

Wave is an award-winning, national water retailer, helping businesses drive down water use and lower their utility bills. While Wave’s current benefits package is meeting employee needs, having no benefits platform technology left employees unsure where they could access their benefits, as 34% of businesses also report. Partnering with Zest will increase accessibility for employees, improve their visibility of total reward statements and allow employees to choose benefits that suit them.

Matt Russell, CEO, Zest comments: “Employers are increasingly looking for new ways to meet the differing needs of their employees in ways that will truly make a difference to them on a highly personal level. With one million job vacancies in the UK, businesses are facing increasing pressure to offer value to current and prospective employees in a way that extends beyond salary. Partnering with PoloWorks and Wave will empower both businesses, and more importantly, their employees, by providing more accessible, engaging, and tailored benefits that offer enhanced value for money.”

Harriet Grant, HR Manager, PoloWorks comments: “For us Zest is about consolidating our core benefits onto one platform. Colleagues can access information about everything on offer, as well as self-serve additional salary sacrifice options such as additional pension contributions, family PMI, holiday purchase and cycle to work and instantly see how this will impact their take home pay. This will integrate directly with our ADP payroll removing much of the back-office administration load our HR and finance team currently deal with.”

Jane Austin, Director of HR, Wave, comments: “While we’ve recently won an award for our employee benefits, we haven’t had a dedicated platform. Though our internal survey found that employees were extremely happy with their benefits, they had to navigate various parts of the Wave internal directory to access benefits information. Partnering with Zest means that we can improve accessibility, provide a total reward statement for the first time, helping us to ensure that we are providing positive employee experiences.”

These new customers are the latest additions to Zest’s client base of over 700 businesses across the UK, as employers increasingly look for ways to improve their offering and stand out against other employers in what is a competitive employee market. Adopting a more personalised approach to benefits can offer a cost-effective solution to help employers to cater to the demands and needs of an increasingly varied workforce.

Zest currently provides its employee benefits platform and benefits services to a wide range of well-known businesses across the world, including Hargreaves Lansdown, Taylor Wimpey, ADP and Travis Perkins.   

www.zestbenefits.com  |  www.polo.works