Some of the key moments from Great Place To Work’s “Best Workplaces Benefits Playbook” webinar with Cisco, Flight Centre and Future Leadership. Thank you to SG Fleet for making this conversation possible. SG Fleet is Australia’s leading provider of novated leasing, salary packaging solutions, fleet management and mobility services.
Flight Centre’s in-house money coaches helped employees save more than $100 million in home loan interest last financial year. That very shiny figure landed midway through our Best Workplaces Benefits Playbook webinar this week, a long way from the era of fruit bowls and F45 membership discounts.
On the panel was Steven Elvin, who has spent 25 years with Flight Centre Travel Group and is currently one of the people shaping their famous benefits offering, and Anna Konishi, who leads benefits for Cisco across Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Michelle Loader, the Managing Director of Future Leadership rounded out the panel with a leadership advisory view.
You can watch a full, unedited recording of the Best Workplaces Benefits Playbook webinar below, or read on for our highlights.
How Best Workplaces define benefits
Steven Elvin has watched benefits evolve over 25 years at Flight Centre, where some of the strongest offerings “have been in place for 40 plus years” and are now getting “a new lease on life because they are being globalised” as he attempts to pull perks, programs and initiatives under one simple banner of benefits.
Anna sees benefits as the whole experience around time away, wellbeing and smaller perks. She stresses that “from an employee perspective their definition and idea of benefits… is very different,” so her team works across HR to keep the message consistent while still fitting local expectations and legislation.
Michelle summed up the shift in one line. Benefits “used to support the job, today they need to support our careers” through flexibility, wellbeing support, financial initiatives and ongoing development. In our data, when employees feel benefits grow with them through life stages, they are far more likely to stay and feel secure in their role.
In Great Place To Work data, only about 45 percent of employees in typical (non Certified) Australian workplaces agree that “we have special and unique benefits here.” For certified companies that number sits at around 80% and for Best Workplaces it jumps to 91.8 percent, with Certified organisations sitting in the middle on 80.8 percent.
That gap gives you an idea around which companies are treating benefits as a strategic lever rather than a line item.
As Michelle Loader astutely pointed out during our conversation, expectations have shifted so much that things which felt amazing 25 years ago now “are just a ticket to play.” Her warning for HR leaders was that if you do not keep reinventing your offer in line with employee expectations, your “special benefits” will risk turning into basic hygiene factors.
How benefits like novated leasing address cost‑of‑living pressure
There is still a pretty persistent belief that top-tier benefits like salary packaging and novated leasing only help senior leaders. “It’s a perception we’re actively working to challenge,” said Steven. “A big part of the shift has come from education. When employees understand the potential savings and can see the numbers applied to their own circumstances, the conversation becomes much more accessible.”
“Legislative changes, particularly around electric vehicles and novated leasing, have also helped broaden the appeal.
We still have work to do, but we’re seeing more employees explore these options than ever before because they’re increasingly being viewed as financial wellbeing tools rather than executive perks.”
Novated leasing in particular has recently seen a huge popularity in benefits packages, but both Cisco and Flight Centre have a longer view. Anna noted that Cisco has offered novated leasing “as part of our benefits for a quite a long time now and are supported by our team dedicated to looking after care related benefits globally. We observe that there has been interest from the start and we’re seeing that grow even more recently.”
She sees better communications around what is actually available to employees as the key piece many companies may miss. “We do not believe it’s meant for a limited population, it’s just important however that we continue to educate employees and show the options they have.”
When benefits become financial wellbeing
Steven elaborated that Flight Centre introduced novated leasing through its Moneywise financial wellbeing program so that dedicated specialists can stay across market changes and “help employees understand whether a benefit is right for them.”
Asked which benefits had the strongest measurable impact, Steven did not need to guess. In the last financial year alone, Flight Centre’s Moneywise team ran more than 10,000 one‑on‑one consultations, completed almost 3,000 tax returns and “helped save over $100 million in home loan interest” via loan assessments and refinancing. He cares about the outcomes behind those numbers: reduced debt, more savings, improved financial confidence and more people engaging with long‑term planning, including super.
Stackable and “choose your own adventure” benefits
Michelle’s favourite emerging model is stackable benefits and spoke of one global CEO she works with, across 26 countries, groups benefits into categories and lets employees pick a set number from each within a defined budget. Steven likes the theory but flagged the scale problem: apply a per-person budget across 25,000-plus people and the CFO asks, “Where’s the return on the investment?”
Steven talked about why Flight Centre built a single Global Benefits website. Employees were saying benefits were hard to find and looked different by region, so putting everything into one place has made benefits easier to discover and compare. It also surfaced gaps in the offer across brands and countries, sped up decisions on what to invest in next and sparked better conversations about equity and scalability.
Michelle’s view was that design is only half the job. Offering a benefit is not the same as creating value from it. If people do not know a benefit exists, do not understand it or cannot see how it fits their life, it effectively does not exist. From an EVP point of view, she is seeing leading organisations:
Move from long benefit lists to a clear story about the experience of working there.
Treat leadership development, mentoring, coaching, learning platforms and career paths as benefits in their own right.
Show how those supports connect to culture, growth, wellbeing and opportunity.
Her low‑tech tactics for smaller organisations were to give everyone a modest wellbeing budget (around $300 a year) they can use on what they actually need, and ask employees to rank existing benefits and nominate one new one.
Anna offered a similar, cost‑conscious model. She likes a fixed allowance that employees can use in different areas so the benefit feels flexible and equitable, even if measuring impact is trickier. She also called out Cisco’s time‑based benefits, like volunteer time and a quarterly shutdown where the whole company rests together – a practical way to show that benefits are “an investment to our people,” not just a line on a spreadsheet.
Benefits that outlast the job
The most future-facing thread: capability as a benefit. Flight Centre has rolled out LinkedIn Learning globally with curated AI modules, “guiding people through to having skills that they can take anywhere.” Michelle’s “responsible employer mandate”: every person should leave “with capability or capacity that they didn’t have when they joined.”
Her CFO pitch advice is worth stealing. Lead with “here’s when I’m going to stop, so that I can start,” then bring the cost-benefit analysis. Because, as she put it, “the cost attached to benefits will never be as great as the cost attached to disengagement, stagnation and burnout.”
Want to know how your benefits land? The Trust Index survey tracks that exact “special and unique benefits” statement.
If you are looking for your partner in employee benefits, SG Fleet make it simple delivering valued employee benefits, simplifying admin, and supporting sustainability. Discover SG Fleet’s employee benefits solutions, and support your employee engagement at sgfleet.com/au/employee-benefits-program
Meet The Panel
Joining the conversation was Anna Konishi, Benefits Consultant at Cisco, where she manages benefit and wellbeing programs across ANZ and Japan. With 10 years of HR experience spanning generalist, global operations, and benefits roles, Anna brings a practitioner’s perspective on what genuinely moves the needle.
Bringing a global perspective was Steven Elvin, People Experience and Employee Benefits leader at Flight Centre Travel Group, focused on creating meaningful employee experiences that help people thrive both at work and in life. His work spans global benefits, wellbeing, recognition, community engagement and employee communications.
And we were also lucky enough to have Michelle Loader, Managing Director of Future Leadership, where she helps boards and executives navigate the changing world of work. A Harvard Business School alumna and former CEO of Chandler Macleod, Michelle brought with her over 25 years of experience in leadership, advisory and strategy roles.
A very big thank you to our brilliant panelists for their time and wealth of knowledge.
FAQs
What is an employee benefits strategy?
An employee benefits strategy is a structured plan for how your organisation designs, funds and communicates benefits so they support culture, retention and business results. At Best Workplaces, benefits are treated as investments in people and high‑trust culture rather than just costs, and they are regularly reviewed using employee feedback and utilisation data.
How do I make benefits feel special and unique?
To make benefits feel special and unique, start by asking employees which benefits they value most and which they would replace, then focus spend on those. Great Place To Work data shows only 45 percent of employees in typical Australian workplaces agree they have special and unique benefits, compared with over 90 percent at Best Workplaces, so aligning benefits to real needs and life stages is critical.
What is novated leasing?
Novated leasing is a three‑way agreement between you, your employer and a finance provider that lets you pay for a car and its running costs from your salary, often using a mix of pre‑tax and post‑tax income. In Australia it is a common form of salary packaging that can bundle repayments, registration, insurance, fuel and maintenance into one regular payment, which may reduce taxable income depending on your circumstances.
Are novated leases only for high‑income employees?
Novated leasing is often seen as a high‑income benefit, but employers like Flight Centre and Cisco are challenging that view by using education and financial coaching. Legislative changes, particularly around electric vehicles, have improved the value proposition for a wider range of employees, turning novated leasing into a financial wellbeing tool rather than an executive perk.
How can small businesses build a strong benefits strategy?
Small businesses can build strong benefits by starting with a clear budget per employee, mapping non‑negotiable supports like EAP, then co‑designing the rest with staff. Tactics such as ranking current benefits, introducing stackable or fixed‑amount wellbeing budgets and using trust‑based leave can create a sense of choice without needing complex portals or large HR teams.
How do I know when to retire a benefit?
A benefit is ready to retire when utilisation is low over time, feedback is lukewarm or negative, and newer options can support more employees for similar cost. Leaders at Cisco and Flight Centre rely on engagement surveys, Trust Index scores and usage data, and they often replace underused benefits with broader or more flexible programs instead of simply cutting support.
If you are looking for your partner in employee benefits, SG Fleet make it simple delivering valued employee benefits, simplifying admin, and supporting sustainability. Discover SG Fleet’s employee benefits solutions, and support your employee engagement at sgfleet.com/au/employee-benefits-program
