National Inclusion Week: is your share plan inclusive?

All-employee share plans are automatically inclusive, right?

Wrong – just because everyone’s eligible, doesn’t mean everyone can access the information about your share plan. Or that once they’ve accessed it, they can actually understand it.

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Language – are you being understood?

Clarity is the key to making your share plan communications truly inclusive.

But too often, share plan communications are dry and full of jargon. These topics are tricky enough without making employees wade through essays of technical language.

Impenetrable communications can be a huge turn off – your people will think share plans and investing are for experts, not for them.

The solution? Make your writing approachable. For some quick tips on how to do this, check out our recent blog post.

It’s also worth considering that hard-to-understand communications often disadvantage the employees who need a financial leg-up the most.

Share ownership can sound scary if you’re new to it. It’s twice as scary if it’s shrouded in financial jargon. Now imagine nobody in your family or social circle have ever invested, so you’ve got nobody to ask for guidance.

This is why impenetrable communications disproportionately disadvantage those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Share plans don’t have to be complex, but it’s not fair to expect everyone to understand them straight off the bat – people just need a fair shot at understanding something new.

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Accessibility – can everyone get the information they need?

We often see an over-reliance on email as the primary communications channel. But this only really works if you have a 100% desk-based population.

To make sure everyone can access the information, consider how you’ll reach the rest of your workforce. You could use posters and other display items with QR codes linking to your microsite.

Face-to-face channels are important here too. If you equip your managers and leaders to speak knowledgeably about your plan to their teams, this will go a long way to making sure the message reaches everyone.

We always suggest you use a microsite as a central hub for information. They have significant advantages over intranet pages, which are only accessible for those logged into your network, and pdf brochures, which have a whole host of accessibility issues.

Pdfs create barriers for people with disabilities. Changing browser settings like colours and text sizes to read content on-screen often doesn’t work for pdfs. People using screen readers often have problems with pdfs too.

And on mobile, the limitations of pdfs become even clearer – an exasperating experience of zooming, panning and scrolling. A well-built microsite will scale to the device being used, meaning your content is easily accessible from anywhere.

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Finally, a word on plan design

The way your plan is structured can also impact its inclusivity.

Thankfully most share plans have a low minimum monthly amount - often just £5. But this isn’t always well-communicated. We’ve seen plenty of campaigns with examples of what people could end up with if they save large amounts each month. It's better to include examples which show that even a small contribution could make a real difference. Make sure you talk about any flexibility in the plan too, like the ability to change or pause monthly savings, or take money out if you change your mind.

It’s also worth thinking about wider financial wellbeing. Help your employees understand where share plans fit into their overall finances. And providing education around budgeting and financial planning could alleviate affordability concerns.

Another option is to include a free share element when designing your plan. That way even lower-paid or struggling employees can benefit. And if your share plan is likely to be oversubscribed, it's often best to reduce the maximum monthly contribution, rather than applying scale-back, which would reduce the amount less well-off employees can save.

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How RewardPro can help

At RewardPro, we place inclusivity at the heart of everything we do. We’re passionate believers in the power of employee share ownership to improve financial wellbeing, and we want every employee to have a chance to benefit.

From helping with plan design and channel planning, through to building accessible microsites and writing easy-to-understand communications in plain English, we’ve got all the angles covered.

If you need some help communicating your share plan, we’d love to chat.

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