Reward will cover all workplace benefits, including pensions, share-save schemes and bonus design, plus incentives such as cycle-to-work schemes. It’s a challenging sector as HR directors get to grips with pensions auto enrolment and the importance of retaining quality staff.
“We have built Reward’s audience from scratch, using data from the ONS and Experian as our starting point,” says associate publisher Stuart Hall. “We followed this up with extensive research to allow us to identify and engage with HR directors at companies with 250-999 employees. This middle market audience is currently underserved and is most in need of targeted workplace benefits information.”
“Our comprehensive audience build process was completed under the guidance of the ABC and has resulted in an impending audit being released with the launch. It’s a remarkable achievement for a launch project.”
As a result of further audience research, Reward has been designed as a 100+ page information guide to ensure it fulfils the middle market audience’s information requirements. It features in-depth information and peer guidance to inform major decisions on all aspects of financing, implementing and monitoring workplace benefit programmes.
“We’ve targeted a sweet spot in the market that has very specific information needs,” says editor Maggie Williams. “Our market research tells us this sector is responsible for billions of pounds of investment in employee benefits. Our mission is to give them clearly-understandable information they can put to practical use.”
With pensions auto enrolment beginning in October 2012, the information requirements of middle market HR directors have never been more important. Reward aims to occupy the centre ground of this increasingly important sector.
“The launch of Reward is an important development for Newsquest Specialist Media: it extends the company’s footprint into an important allied sector to its existing pensions, risk management and general insurance positions,” says managing director Tim Whitehouse. “The new insights gained from Reward will help to strengthen the company’s relationships with UK middle market organisations and the companies that serve them. Reward will sit alongside Pensions Insight and Engaged Investor – both brands that have also been successfully launched by us.”
