Share incentive scheme management is an area within your business that is fraught with legacy processes, and manual and repetitive tasks. For example, the employee award issue process has traditionally been highly manual and paper-based. 

Throughout the years, rewards and remuneration teams have simply accepted that issuing award letters is a process that takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. A process that is prone to error and pulls skilled minds away from strategic work and chains them to mundane, manual and repetitive tasks. 

Are automation and digitisation really necessary for issuing awards?  

Simply put, yes. 

As employees demand digital solutions that are easy to use and transparent, so will companies have to keep up with those demands or risk losing talent to other companies who can provide them.  

Ultimately, the award issuing process is a business function that clearly needs digital transformation in all its glory. That’s because, within any business, the bottom line is this: if technology can digitise a manual process and do weeks’ worth of work within a few minutes, and without error, it’s no longer a question of if you should do it, but when. Especially when the successful uptake of a voluntary scheme hinges on the success and efficiency of the award process itself.  

What areas Within Award Issuing can be digitized and automated? 

For many, it can be hard to visualise how digitalisation can help productivity on the ground. Therefore, we’d like to highlight real examples of award issuing areas that can be digitized and automated and then highlight the benefits they will yield for the rewards team and the employees they serve.

Within the award issuing process, some of the areas that can easily be digitized and automated include: 

• Setting up awards
• Generating templates dynamically
• Providing digital access for employees that is easy-to-use

Setting Up Awards 

Using a digital platform to centralise and hold award information allows the rewards team to simply combine the award’s salient terms and conditions together with the employee details. Once information is stored in one centralised place, the platform automatically pulls the key pieces of data into letter templates.

Generating Letter Templates Dynamically

Once your awards have been set up,  the award templates can be populated at the click of a button, dynamically updating the specific terms of the award. Part of achieving transparency for your employees means providing a clear and simple view of the terms of the award but at the same time applying the appropriate branding for your company or its divisions.

Ultimately, a digital platform can replace the temperamental and glitchy functions of Excel and Word’s merge functions (and the time it takes to spot-check for errors).  

Providing digital access for employees that is easy-to-use

A successful, well-communicated share incentive scheme drives employee wellness, productivity and their involvement and dedication to growth. For your employees, there are few things more important than being able to understand the value and terms of their awards. 

Communicating to employees on a centralised platform provides a secure environment in which they gain access to transparent, real-time data. In addition, this helps your company avoid the risks of not complying with personal data regulations.

It’s also worth mentioning that an online platform allows the share scheme administrator to manage employee acceptances by providing a mechanism to digitally follow-up and track those acceptances. With default acceptance rules and automated cut-off dates, everything becomes significantly easier.    

Conclusion 

A central share incentive scheme management tool should be seen as an administrative assistant that aids all people involved in scheme administration. The overarching merits of digitizing and automating repetitive and manual tasks should be celebrated and adopted as soon as possible. Not only for the benefit of your employees but your rewards and scheme management teams! 

Having an incentive scheme platform that automates your processes could alleviate so much administrative burden. Ultimately, it can save months of time and free up members to execute more strategic work. 

ShareForce’s role within the digital transformation of Incentive Scheme Management 

ShareForce is one of very few platforms that automates and digitises the incentive scheme management process. Our platform provides a holistic, end-to-end tool that offers solutions to financial, rewards and administrative teams who are involved in incentive scheme management; from calculating fair values of complex derivatives to issuing awards successfully. 

If you wish to explore ShareForce’s capabilities, book a demo by filling in the form below or or visit www.shareforce.net/contact