Flex at a large housing association - Family Mosaic Housing

About Family Mosaic Housing

Family Mosaic Housing has been supplying Londoners with good quality, affordable homes and housing services since 1961. Operating in 30 London boroughs, it provides accommodation for more than 30,000 people in over 13,000 homes, accommodation and support for people with special needs and temporary accommodation for almost 1,000 families. The organisation employs around 1500 people.

Key facts

  • Over 1,100 employees, London and SE based social housing organisation
  • Objectives - control benefit costs, harmonise and modernise offering using flex
  • Mazars Employee Benefits – feasibility, benefit provider selection, employee communication, implementation support, customised on-line technology solution
  • Client since 2003

Background to the introduction of flexible benefits

A number of challenges relating to employee benefits faced this organisation. They were experiencing spiralling benefit inflation and, in addition, the organisation had little ability to deal with a declining retention rate through base pay as this is tightly bench marked.

At the same they are driven by strict cost control and this created another critical factor for our client. In HR terms this focus on costs required systems that accurately track data and minimise administration.

In benefit terms, there was a need to effectively manage costs, to communicate the value of total remuneration and offer benefit flexibility to meet the diverse needs of their workforce.

Our solution

Employees' views were surveyed and this lead to a number of new initiatives being implemented to improve the employee offering. Part of this process included a review of the benefit arrangements. Mazars Employee Benefits carried out initial consultations with the management team assigned to this task and it was agreed that a number of changes should be considered to meet the agreed objectives of providing more information to employees along with more choice.

Working with Mazars Employee Benefits, the revised benefit arrangements were initially communicated through an online preference survey, employee workshops and also by training line managers to become information sources for their employees.

The long-term disability plan was replaced with a range of options that individuals could use to suit their own circumstances and part of the savings was offered to staff to spend on additional benefits.

The employer pension contribution of over 11% was communicated to staff using total reward statements showing all their benefits, including their new benefit choices. A range of employee discount offerings was also introduced following a benefit specific to widen the relevance of the benefit offering with the

Key Benefits

  • Improved benefit communication with an increased perception of value
  • Existing benefit spend reduced and capped.
  • Improved benefit choice reinforces a culture of personal responsibility and development by offering more employee involvement in shaping their benefits package.

From the client

"Mazars Employee Benefits are always a pleasure to deal with - they have plenty of good ideas, explain matters clearly and always give excellent value.  Mazars Employee Benefits have always given us excellent service, their advice is clear and sound and the support is helpful, efficient and reliable."

Tony Hart, Group Head of HR, Family Mosaic
Redbourne client since 2003
 

Please contact us if you require further information.