How One Team Turned Benefits Week Into Its Favourite Week of the Year

"We had a cycle-to-work scheme, a health cash plan, and an employee assistance programme," she says. "Take-up was under 15% across the board. People didn't know what they had." The problem wasn't the benefits. It was the story. Priya spent her first month asking employees why they hadn't signed up. The answers were consistent: the portal was confusing, the emails read like legal notices, and nobody could explain what a "salary sacrifice" was. So she skipped the policy documents and did something simpler. She asked colleagues who already used the benefits to talk about them. A warehouse supervisor described how the cycle scheme saved him £600 on a bike he now rides to every shift. A finance analyst explained how the health cash plan covered her daughter's new glasses. A driver talked about calling the assistance line during a hard winter. Benefits Week was born Those stories became the centrepiece of the company's first Benefits Week. Each day covered one theme: money, health, family, wellbeing, and future planning. Short videos ran on the canteen screens. Drop-in sessions replaced webinars. Managers got a one-page cheat sheet so they could answer questions on the spot. The results surprised everyone: Benefits portal logins rose 220% during the week Enrolment in the health cash plan nearly tripled 92% of attendees said they understood their package better What other teams can learn Priya's advice for other HR teams is to start with people, not products. "Nobody gets excited about a policy," she says. "They get excited when someone they know says, 'This helped me.'" She also recommends keeping the conversation going after the event. Her team now sends a short monthly "benefit spotlight" and refreshes the stories each quarter. "Benefits Week opened the door," she says. "Communication all year round is what keeps it open." The people, company and figures here are made up, so it works as test content. I can write more in a different tone or length, or put several into a test file.