Nationwide Rolls Out Phase II Of Benefits Strategy (Vebnet)

Swindon 13 June 2005 – Nationwide Building Society, the 4th largest mortgage lender in the UK, delivered online Total Remuneration Statements (TRS) for the first time to its 15,800 employees, using Vebnet’s FIX&FLEX® service. The TRS is the latest module to be rolled out for “Fruitful”, Nationwide’s integrated rewards platform. Delivering TRS online is seen as part of an overall reward strategy to enhance employees’ perception of their employment package and to underpin the Society’s recruitment and retention levels. Employees can view the value of their pay and benefits, including combined pension forecasts.

The launch of TRS saw over 4,000 employees login within the first hour, which demonstrated the scalability and robust nature of the Vebnet application. The system has been designed to interface with Nationwide’s PeopleSoft HR and Unipay payroll applications.

Ewan McDonald, Chief Technology Officer of Vebnet commented: “Despite the exceptional load, FIX&FLEX® easily maintained its service level response times throughout the launch day, with all tiers of the infrastructure coping well with the demands placed on it. It is always particularly pleasing to see the application performing as well in a real-life situation as it does in performance test environments.”

Paul Bissell, Senior Rewards Manager at Nationwide said, “This is a valuable new development for our employees. We’ve run paper-based statements with our flex scheme (Choices) for over 8 years, but now our employees are able to view all of their benefits, make their flex selections and understand the full value of their employment package within a single integrated solution. The initial feedback has been excellent and we’re now starting to realise the full benefit of a cost effective 24x7 web enabled solution provided by FIX&FLEX®.”

Fruitful was first launched in November 2004, with the delivery of Choices, when a record number of employees made in excess of 11,500 individual benefit choices. The next stage of development for Fruitful will see the introduction of a rewards and recognition module and shopping channel provided by the Grass Roots Group’s Benefits4Me online service.