Centralisation at multinationals is not being reflected in their employee benefits offerings, with local stakeholders still dominating decision making, a survey for Aon has found.
While 40% make mainly local decisions, 7% of multinationals make global employee benefits decisions, the findings come from Aon's 2015 Global Benefits Survey of 184 global benefits and rewards specialists.
The majority, 65% of organisations agreed their plans were only fit for purpsode, rather than excellent.
Multinational pooling was something less than 10% of multinationals without it were planning to implement for their employee benefits.
A third of those companies using multinational pooling are actively keeping the structure under review, the survey found.
A majority of organisations lacked a global benefits database, with administration and a lack of information the key challenges respondents faced.
Carl Redondo, leader of the UK global benefits practice at Aon, said, "The survey results are striking.
"There is a clear trend of centralisation at multinationals, yet it isn't yet flowing through to the way that employee benefits are managed.
"There appears to be an increase in the influence of global centres of excellence but the vast majority of decisions are still being taken by local stakeholders.
"The data also shows us that the effectiveness of centres of excellence is generally is being restricted by a lack of up to date information and administration activities."
He added: "The stand out message is that whilst organisations are building the infrastructure to manage employee benefits globally we are still in a transition to that model.
"As they go through this, global benefits teams are being hampered by a lack of data and administration, reducing overall effectiveness.
"The trend towards benefits centres of excellence is a positive step to improving the governance and effectiveness of benefit programmes around the world.
"However, the study highlights that establishing one is only the start of the journey; significant change management is then needed to drive value from the new model."
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