Reducing admin for a small business | How we helped The BD Consultancy

Introduction

The BD Consultancy is a team of business development and marketing professionals who operate out of Bristol and London. Their aim is to help businesses grow, profitably. They provide a range of services including business development health checks, staff training, marketing services and interim support, amongst others.

The Challenge of Minimising Admin

The BD Consultancy is on the smaller side; with less than ten employees, the company initially thought that employee benefits would be too expensive to offer and onerous to manage. Multiple benefits, operated through multiple benefit partners would have put an additional strain on the administration team within the organisation.

They originally contacted Bravo Benefits as they were intrigued by our offer of a digital platform that could bring all their benefits into an easily accessible workspace that was easy to administer.  The BD Consultancy wished to offer a bespoke package of benefits specifically tailored to their small team.

How Bravo Benefits Responded

1.    A digital product that eliminates admin

Our Smart Hive platform was the perfect solution to The BD Consultancy’s problem. It allows users to access all their benefits directly in one place, reducing the hassle of keeping track of multiple logins, accounts and passwords. It allows users to manage their benefits independently, eliminating the need for an internal team to manage the scheme as a whole. It would be the perfect solution for The BD Consultancy, as no one on their team would be needed to administer their benefits, allowing their small team to focus on the things that mattered to them: namely helping other businesses grow.

Smart Hive acts as a container for all the benefits that you want to provide. Each user is given a separate login, launching a dashboard where they can see their benefits laid out. Clicking on a specific tile takes the user to a page that explains the benefit’s purpose and how to use it. The platform then directly connects the user to the correct benefit partner, allowing them to access their benefit themselves and eliminating the need for internal administrators to manage the schemes on employees’ behalf.

Smart Hive also has a function that allows users to request help directly from the team at Bravo Benefits, further reducing the need for internal administrators to act as intermediaries should a technical problem arise.

Every team member can access their benefits when and wherever they want, providing ultimate flexibility and convenience. No internal administrative team is needed to act as intermediates, adding no additional workload to small companies.

The BD Consultancy were excited at the prospect of using Smart Hive as a solution to the challenges they faced as a small company with a limited administrative team.

During our initial discovery consultation, The BD Consultancy specifically named Cycle to Work as a benefit they wanted. Although they knew they wanted to offer their team a variety of benefits that supported their Health and Wellbeing, they were unsure as to what specific benefits could help.

Our team were able to suggest several of our products, such as our Everyday Health Cash Plan, Employee Assistance Programme, MyMindPal, as well as Financial Wellbeing Support and Gym and Retail Discount Schemes.

‍The collection of employee benefits was designed to cover two main aspects of employee health and wellbeing: financial and mental.

2.    Benefits that support financial wellbeing

Financial struggles can have a significant impact on the wellbeing of people at work. Our Everyday Health Cash Plan is designed to help employees spread the cost of health care not covered by the NHS; scheme users can receive discounts on services such as optician appointments and dental appointments. We also recommended the inclusion of the Financial Wellbeing Support program as a way of helping staff who might be struggling with managing their cash flow through financial education, debt advice and lending.

3.    Benefits that support mental wellbeing

To support the mental wellbeing of their team, we recommended The BD Consultancy added The Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and MyMindPal to their benefits package. MyMindPal helps employees develop mental resilience through a series of training exercises, allowing them to manage stress and maintain a good work/life balance. The program helps prevent mental illness. The EAP provides access to thousands of resources on mental health, as well as online and face-to-face counselling should employees need more proactive support in this area. These two products work together to provide a comprehensive package of mental health support.

4.    Benefits that reward and motivate

As well as providing benefits designed to support their team’s physical, mental and financial wellbeing, The BD Consultancy wanted to reward staff who were working hard towards the company’s goal of helping businesses grow. So they opted to include the Gym and Retail Discount Schemes as a way of recognising the efforts that their colleagues were putting into the company.

The Results

The BD Consultancy were able to provide a tailored package of employee benefits to their small team, at an affordable price. They were able to keep their administration costs and effort at a minimum and ensure they were supporting and rewarding their team.

We were delighted to have helped them by providing a creative and flexible solution. They said:

‍“With a permanent team of under ten people, we needed something flexible and Bravo were excellent at helping us consider the options and set up a tailored plan – all within a sensible budget. While other providers wouldn’t even talk to us, they spent the time to find out what we really needed and help us work out the best way to deliver for our team.”

‍Smart Hive has ensured The BD Consultancy can support their team and get on with the important job of helping other businesses by eliminating unnecessary administration.