Personal Productivity and Improvement Benefit – A HR Program Proposal

Read Time: 7 minutes-ish

Background
The infusion of millennials into the workforce have seen rise to some employee benefits that previously would be considered a sin to even consider it. Much less to implement it.

Some examples include sleep pods in Google Headquarters at Mountain View, California and a couple of other strategic HQs in various regions (30 years ago, nobody would have agreed to let their employees sleep in the office). Other benefits include car sharing and work from home. Closer to home in Singapore, companies are only considering to adopt Flexible Working Hours and Remote Work Arrangements. Adoption rates are slow, the employee tends to take advantage of such arrangements rather than to embrace the benefit it brought about that will make people’s lives better.

While brainstorming for new HR programs to add to our existing list of offerings, I thought of a benefit which I have never heard or thought of before. I dare not claim credit to be the first to ever thought of this but I certainly never heard of this before. But it’s not surprising if no company ever implement this due to the high probability of abuse due to the nature of this program.

But let us imagine we live in a perfect world and abuse of HR program will not even cross the mind of any employees.

Introduction
The Personal Productivity and Improvement Benefit (PPIB) Program is a defined sum of money set aside for every employee similar to a flexi-benefit program or training budget where a list of pre-approved events or activities will allow you to claim from the flexi-benefit and a list of pre-approved training courses will allow you to claim from a training budget for personal or professional development. The money will not be handed out to the employee but will be accumulated from month to month in an account that is not managed by the employee.

In the PPIB program, you get to tap into the knowledge of a friend, a family member or a professional. You decide on the price you want to pay by quoting them and you decide on the objective and scope of the service/job they provide for you.

Examples:

• You are an HR professional who “crunches” data on a daily basis and you have a friend who is a programming expert, you could ask him to write a macro-module in MS Excel or simply write an entirely new program to help you automate your data analysis.
• You are a Facilities Manager and you have a cousin who is a firefighter with the SCDF and a fire safety expert, you can consult your cousin to inspect your workplace for possible fire hazards and recommend procedures for the proper disposal of hazardous waste.
• You are a recruiter and your company did not outsource the calling to a call center. You have a defined and robust procedure for screening candidates through the telephone. You may outsource your calling to a freelancer on Odesk or Fiverr.

Unlike traditional budget and purchase requisition for ad-hoc services, you do not ask for a quote, you quote the service provider and determine the scope of the project yourself. There is also no need for a lengthy approval process because the budget has already been allocated to the staff. Like a flexi-benefit program, the company do not need to control the service provider but to ensure the staff follows the proper procedure.

Proposed Procedure & Administration
Based on the revenue of the company, the company may determine the amount of allocation of the budget to this benefit program. It may be administered by:

1. Topping up with a fixed sum of money on an annual basis (e.g.: topping up the account with $500 a year until it hits a pre-determined cap)
2. Refreshing to a pre-determined amount (e.g.: account refreshes to $500 regardless of balance from last year)
3. Topping up a fixed amount every month until it hits a pre-determined cap (e.g.: topping up $200 every month)

Any expiration of credit is to be informed. To encourage employees to use the money for what it is supposed to do, the company should not allow encashment of benefit if the benefit fails to be utilized.

The procedure will consist of the following phase:

Recognizing – Staff start by recognizing they want to improve a certain area or gain a new skill OR they recognize the strength of one of their friend, or family member.

Reaching Out – The staff reaches out to their network/contact that they would like to engage them in a project or consultation and they will be paid in the process.

Discussion – The staff will invite the contact to discuss the objective and price of the project.

Submission of Proposal – The staff will have to submit the project to the administrating department (could be the HR, Finance or any other suitable department), and it should contain the following, this example will use the recruiter case as a reference:

1. Objective – what is the objective?
   1. Example: To improve productivity by outsourcing calling to a call center
2. The scope of the project – What would be done?
   1. Example: The freelancer shall devote at least 3 to 4 hours of time on a daily basis to fix the appointment for the interview of candidates. The freelancer will get access to the recruiters account in the various job portals being used. The main mode of communication between the recruiter and freelancer shall be by email or WhatsApp, an event calendar shall be shared so that interview could be scheduled without a clash. And this project will last for around 3-months, estimated expenditure will be $200
3. Price – The price of the project?
   5. Example: The freelancer shall be paid $5.00 per hour, with a one-time fee of $50 as the project discussion took place over lunch at a café. All logistical fees incurred for the project is claimable as long as it does not exceed budget. Payment for the logistical claim does not need to wait for the project to end, claimable at the point of submitting a receipt.

Approval by Administrating Department – Administrating department shall ensure there is sufficient credit for this benefit and review the scope and objective to ensure there are sufficient details and approve or recommend adjustment.

Issuance of note – Staff will issue payment note, the scope of duty and objective to the service provider, both parties needs to acknowledge the details.

Start of project – Commencement of project

End of project and Payment – Staff informs administration department that the project has been completed, submit the scope of the project for verification and an end of the project report is to be submitted highlighting the areas that are improved such as SOP changes or Policy changes or any proof of work completed. Administration department to initiate payment for the service provider.

Objective of this benefit program

The objective of this program is to encourage employees to interact with their network and utilize their knowledge to improve their own productivity and knowledge. Allow them to gain exposure to what their friends or family member could be doing on a daily basis in their work. More importantly, employing the services of that friend or family member to help the company grow.

Since the budget is determined by the employee and the service provider is a friend, the company has more control on the amount of money to pay and leveraging on the relationship between the employee and the service provider to lower cost.

Imagine the case of the HR person engaging the friend to create a program for analyzing data, the same program may be used for another purpose by another employee in a separate department, the company may invest to develop into an in-house software with more extensive features and services. The risk associated with such an investment is typically lower because if the company intends to develop and invest in the improvement of a program, it usually means that early success has been observed.

The company may also leverage the relations of their employee to grow and nurture their relationship with another firm. Populating a list of service provider and contact for potential future projects. The firm is also encouraged to hold appreciation events for these related partners for their contribution to the productivity and contribution to the company such as a partner appreciation dinner. Such events encourage cross-disciplinary ideas exchange and could assist the company to develop or improve their existing suite of products and services and help to inject an element of innovation into their products. It’s also a good platform for firms to collect feedback on their products and services.

Feedback
Have you heard of such a staff benefits program?

Does your company already have a similar program? What are the challenges and the weaknesses of such a program?

Are you able to foresee that this could be flawed and abused?

I would like to hear your thoughts, please comment to let me know how this could be further improved and how you feel about this staff benefits program.