At a glance
When Adam Newton, Head of Reward at Fastmarkets, began shaping a global benefits strategy for 750 employees across eight countries, he encountered a decentralised landscape of local providers, disconnected systems, and limited visibility of total benefits spend. The programme was sponsored at executive level, with the Reward team leading delivery across each geography.
The challenge: Fifty different approaches to the same problem
Fastmarkets is a price-reporting agency operating at pace across global commodity markets. It employs around 750 people spread across offices in the UK, US, Brazil, Singapore, Finland and beyond. And over time, the employee benefits landscape had evolved differently across regions, resulting in variation in experience, complexity in administration, and limited central oversight.
When Adam joined the business in 2023, he found a benefits framework that had grown locally over time and had not yet been aligned under a single global strategy. In the UK, there was a flex platform employees under utilised, with a painful process behind it. In the US, a local HR colleague managed an entirely separate setup In other geographies, benefits decisions were locally led and renewal‑driven, often based on historical arrangements rather than a coordinated global framework.
The problems compounded. There was no single source of truth for reporting. Budget was being spent without any clear view of whether it was working Employees were increasingly aware of benefits available in other regions, which highlighted the need for greater consistency and clearer communication around local differences. And with only a small team managing all of this, there was a huge administrative burden.
Adam wanted to fix the benefits system. Not just tidy it up, but reimagine it entirely. The ambition: genuine benefits minimum standards across every geography, with a consistent employee experience, a clear view of how budget was being used, and a platform that could provide flex to accommodate the nuances of each local market and diverse workforce.
The decision: Why Ben emerged as the right partner
Adam had experience of being through a few painful implementations with a legacy benefits provider before. The experience, rigid change request processes, weeks-long delays for simple fixes, a system that created work rather than reducing it, set a high bar for what the next solution needed to deliver.
When Adam started looking for a new provider, he wanted to find a platform that could work for small headcounts in multiple geographies, not just major markets. Many providers responded with sky-high pricing or showed little appetite for the complexity involved. Ben was different.
“After reviewing a range of options, Ben stood out as the platform best able to support Fastmarkets’ global footprint, offering consistent experience across countries of very different sizes, at a commercially viable scale.”
What stood out wasn't just coverage, it was the way Ben's technology was built. The HRIS integration was quick, clean and reliable. Benefits fulfilment was handled end-to-end. And when issues arose during implementation, they were solved in hours rather than weeks.
"We got down to Ben’s office and spent a couple of hours one afternoon with some of its engineers and senior team, and we solved all the problems," he recalls. " With previous providers, even small changes could involve complex processes and long lead times. With Ben, I said 'this doesn't work' and 30 seconds later they said 'refresh your screen'. That level of responsiveness made a significant difference during implementation."
The reality: Global ambition meets local nuance
Rolling out across eight countries in parallel was an ambitious undertaking, and Adam’s open about the lessons learned along the way. Each geography brought its own regulatory requirements, provider relationships, and employee expectations.
One of the hardest lessons came from the team in Finland. After surveying employees across all geographies and finding strong enthusiasm for wellness benefits, he rolled out a fitness and wellness membership app and spending allowance across multiple markets to positive reception. But it didn’t quite land for Finnish workers.
"They'd filled out the survey and what they really wanted was a nuanced, tax-free wellness benefit specific to Finland. What it highlighted was how important it is to combine global insight with deep local understanding, particularly around tax‑efficient, country‑specific benefits and local expectations”
It's a story that exposes the limits of any one-size-fits-all approach. Global benefits strategy isn't just about having the right platform — it's about using it intelligently, with enough local insight to know when a universal solution needs adapting. And it shows that you always need to dig a little deeper, rather than relying on survey results.
On the administrative side, the transition to Ben delivered tangible results. The manual process of extracting data from the legacy platform, reformatting it, and uploading it elsewhere was eliminated entirely. The result has been clearer visibility, reduced administrative effort, and a more consistent experience for employees globally.
"We were able to remove a significant amount of manual work that added little value." Adam says. "We don't need to do that anymore, which is amazing."
Where they are now: From operational complexity to strategic oversight
Fastmarkets is now fully rolled out globally on Ben. For the first time, Fastmarkets has a consolidated view of benefits data across geographies, enabling clearer insight into spend, engagement, and opportunities for continuous improvement.
He recently presented a full journey review to the company's exec team, from the fragmented starting point to the integrated platform they have today. Fastmarkets can now track engagement rates across geographies, and measure allowance usage. Now, Adam wants to make benefits work harder.
Phase two focuses on using data to refine benefits by geography, improve engagement, and support informed investment decisions, alongside considered expansion into reward and recognition and total reward statements.
“Ben empowers us to give every employee — wherever they are in the world — a benefits experience that feels intentional, relevant, and locally considered, rather than one‑size‑fits‑all.”
Key takeaways
- Be realistic about timelines. A global rollout across multiple geographies takes time. Build in contingency, and don't underestimate the particularities of each local market.
- Survey, but go deeper. Employee feedback is invaluable but it needs interpretation. What people ask for in one country may mean something very different in another.
- Choose a partner, not just a platform. The speed and quality of support when things get complex makes a big difference to whether your global implementation succeeds.
- Phase two matters. Getting benefits live is the starting point, not the goal. The real value comes from continuous improvement, using data to understand engagement, close gaps, and prove ROI over time.
About Fastmarkets
Fastmarkets is a price-reporting agency and information provider for global commodity markets, operating across metals, forest products, agriculture, and energy. The company employs approximately 750 people across eight countries. fastmarkets.com
About Ben
Ben is the AI-native platform for global employee benefits. It’s built to help global benefits teams make sense of complexity, bring clarity across every market, and manage benefits with confidence. thanksben.com