Holiday Extras was the winner of the HR Excellence Award for Most Effective Benefits Strategy, helped to victory by its strong branding. “Branding was massively important to me when working with Thomsons Online Benefits to design the package,” says the travel company’s head of people, Anouk Agussol.
With a youthful workforce, new benefits needed to go beyond standard insurance offerings or mediocre discounts. Holiday Extras introduced 15 new flexible benefits, branded under three categories: My Extra Health, My Extra Wealth and My Extra Lifestyle. Employees put forward other new benefits, including having birthdays off and flexible working.
The language we used in the communication was hugely important, says Agussol. “There’s a fine line between relaxed and positive language, and something that’s clichéd,” she says. “Everything had to look the part.”
The hard work Agussol and Thomsons Online Benefits put into communications has paid off, with a 95% engagement rate in the campaign. There has also been a 19% increase in benefits uptake, a 72% cost saving, a 20% boost in overall engagement, and job applications have doubled. “Employees love it,” says Agussol. “We have a vision to make travel hassle-free, so it’s important our benefits are too.”
