The One With Tony from Aristocrat: What 40 Years in Reward Reveals About Employee Benefits
About the guest
Tony Nevin has spent over four decades in reward and benefits, working as an advisor, consultant, practitioner, entrepreneur, and one of the earliest team members at Thomsons (later Darwin, now Mercer).
He helped bring flexible benefits into the mainstream, moved major employers off spreadsheets, ran his own consultancy, and has advised some of the UK’s most recognisable brands.
Today, Tony leads global reward at Aristocrat — focused on keeping people “happy, healthy, and at work.”
Summary
{spacer-24}
Tony joins Carl and David to reflect on four decades in benefits — from the birth of flex, to the pitfalls of tech, to the ongoing struggles with admin, comms, and engagement.
They cover salary sacrifice reform, focus groups on factory floors, carers’ benefits, medical inflation, neurodiversity, and the hard truth that HR and finance often underestimate the strategic impact of benefits.
{spacer-32}
Topics on the table:
- The origin story of flexible benefits at Thomsons
- Salary sacrifice changes and the hidden impact on low earners
- The real ROI of engagement
- Benefits education: why most employees can’t list what they have
- Carers + eldercare: the quiet workforce trend
- Neurodiversity, ADHD, and new communication patterns
- Why comms need to be simple, short, and friction-free
- The “80% open rate email” formula
{spacer-32}
00:45 — 43 Years, a Green Suit, and an Accidental Career
{spacer-12}
"I’m currently the VP of Reward for Aristocrat, but I’ve been in the industry 43 years… I was wearing a green suit for some strange reason and got absolutely drenched crossing the road — but I got the job. That was the most important thing."
{spacer-32}
02:00 — The Moment Flexible Benefits Were Born
{spacer-12}
"They were looking at just online pensions… Chris went away to America, came back and said, ‘You know what? We should do flexible benefits.’ And that’s how we started. We brought in young people who are now leaders in the industry."
{spacer-32}
03:30 — “The Problem Hasn’t Been Solved Yet”
{spacer-12}
"The problem hasn’t been solved yet despite a lot of people trying."
.png){kind=avatar}
{spacer-32}
05:30 — Salary Sacrifice: Easy for Government, Hard on Employees
{spacer-12}
"I think they will cut it. It’s an easy win… but it hits the lower earners. They’re the ones who pay the most National Insurance — and it has the opposite effect of what they intend."
{spacer-12}
"Everyone in this industry would say it’s a daft move — but I understand why they're doing it."
.png){kind=avatar}
{spacer-32}
08:45 — Engagement as the Real Bottom Line
{spacer-12}
"If you don’t engage people, you don’t succeed as a business. It’s proven through many data sources… but most don’t use that information to support their case. A lot of CFOs don’t know the cost of absence or turnover — so you have to show them."
{spacer-32}
12:30 — Benefits Aren’t Important… Unless You Make Them Important
{spacer-12}
"Benefits are not that important. I’ve always loved them… but going in-house, I realised how unimportant they are to a business. So I’ve made them important. I’ve made people understand what they really do."
{spacer-32}
16:00 — The Whiteboard Reality Check
{spacer-12}
"I start focus groups with two whiteboards. I ask: ‘Could you write up the benefits please?’ And it’s blank. Absolutely blank. They start shouting out what they think we have — ‘Do we have that?’ ‘No.’ It becomes an instant education piece."
{spacer-32}
19:00 — Carers Are the New Frontier of Workforce Support
{spacer-12}
"There are more people looking after their parents than there are children. One in three people now have caring responsibilities… If you support that, your employees are more present. They’re not worrying every five minutes about their parents."
{spacer-32}
23:30 — ADHD, Self-Understanding, and New Communication Patterns
{spacer-12}
"I was diagnosed through the company… I didn’t know I had ADHD. I got nine out of ten. It was eye-opening and it changed how I communicate. People like me won’t read a brochure — but if you write something short, clear, simple, I’ll absorb it immediately."
{spacer-32}
27:00 — The 80% Open-Rate Email
{spacer-12}
"The email for the benefit fair had an 80% read-through. You keep things simple. No clicks. One sentence at the beginning that hits home. That first line — that’s the one they’re going to read."
30:30 — The Job, Defined Simply
{spacer-12}
"My job is to keep people happy, healthy, and at work."
Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Youtube, Apple Podcast.
.png)
.png)
