by Thanks Ben
‘Friends with Benefits’ is the essential podcast for rewards and benefits leaders. Hosted by Carl Chapman and David Duckworth from Ben, each episode brings together top minds in benefits and HR to unpack the latest trends shaping the world of benefits. Think AI, employee engagement, ROI, and more. Expect real talk with industry innovators and bold ideas you’ll want to steal. If you’re building better benefits, this is the podcast your CPO wishes you’d listen to.
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Publishing Since
8/18/2025
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July 2, 2026
<p>In this episode of Friends with Benefits, Dino Bertolis, founder of CycleSaver, argues that the biggest problem with most benefits programmes isn't a lack of generosity. It's a lack of friction.</p><p>Dino joins Carl and David to make the case that removing every barrier to a benefit doesn't always drive take-up. Benefits that ask employees for a small amount of effort often get used more than the ones handed over completely free. People need to feel they've earned something before they'll actually use it.</p><p>They also get into:</p><ul><li>The counterintuitive stat behind London's 57% rise in cycling</li><li>Why time-bound campaigns beat always-on benefits</li><li>The carrot vs stick debate</li><li>What worked (and didn't) in Dino's years designing behaviour change programmes at Discovery Vitality</li><li>How CycleSaver's model complements traditional Cycle to Work schemes</li><li>The sustainability case employers are increasingly making for bike-share</li><li>Dino's hot take on why reward and benefits leaders are some of the broadest generalists in any function</li></ul><p>Friends with Benefits is the podcast for senior Reward and Benefits leaders. Hosted by Carl, VP of Benefit Strategy and Partnerships at Ben, and David, Co-Founder and COO at Ben.</p><p><br></p>
May 21, 2026
<p>In this episode of Friends with Benefits, Gregg Hall, Senior Compensation and Benefits Manager at Santander, argues that most financial wellbeing programmes are built on the wrong assumptions — and miss the people who need help most.Gregg joins Carl and David to push back on how the industry talks about financial wellbeing. Most programmes are designed for people who are already doing fine — guidance on retirement planning, optimising pension contributions, making the most of salary sacrifice.That misses two groups at once. People in financial trouble don't need a manual on how to avoid getting into a hole — they need a ladder out of one. And high earners, often assumed to be financially resilient, often aren't. A career of fast pay rises, a big mortgage, a sales role with bonus dependency, and no rainy-day fund creates the same problem at a different scale — and redundancy exposes it.They also get into salary advance and the senior pushback Gregg had to overcome, why take-up is the wrong metric to measure benefits by, the pension engagement signals that actually mean something, "do it and ask for forgiveness" as a buy-in strategy, and the pet benefits trend coming over from the US.</p><p><br></p><p>Chapters0:00 Intro2:00 The inflation and benefits adequacy debate7:35 What financial wellbeing actually means11:10 Why programmes are aimed at the wrong people12:08 Salary advance and the senior pushback15:30 Designing a programme with no budget17:34 The pension metrics nobody tracks19:44 Do it, then ask for forgiveness22:00 Industry vs. company — what actually shapes a strategy29:15 Talking to people, not demographics35:03 Pet benefits and what comes next37:42 Hot take: stop measuring benefits by take-up38:25 The high-earner assumption is wrongAbout Friends with Benefits</p><p>Friends with Benefits is the podcast for senior Reward and Benefits leaders. Hosted by Carl, VP of Benefit Strategy and Partnerships at Ben, and David, Co-Founder and COO at Ben.</p>
May 7, 2026
<p>Most global benefits transformations are planned in quarters. They're lived in years.In this episode of Friends With Benefits, Carl and David sit down with Adam Newton — Head of Reward at Fastmarkets — for an honest account of what a 15-month global benefits implementation actually involved. The ambition, the friction, the Finland moment, and what he'd do differently.Adam has spent his entire career in reward, with senior roles at G-Research, Associated British Foods, Misys, and Catlin before joining Fastmarkets, where he inherited a fragmented global benefits landscape and set about centralising it onto a single platform with a global flex allowance.In this conversation:</p><p>→ What he walked into: country managers calling their broker and asking for "the same again, not so expensive"→ Why 60–75% benefits engagement is considered good — and what that number doesn't tell you→ The Finland moment: ClassPass, a tax-free gym provision nobody had checked, and a launch that landed flat→ Why payroll errors during implementation are the ones you cannot afford→ The case for guardrails: why letting employees flex medical away is a decision you'll regret→ Medical inflation, compound cost projections, and the difficult conversations ahead→ Why 30 benefits at annual enrolment can become a catalogue nobody reads→ The hot take: your platform is only as good as your supplier's systems — and a lot of those systems haven't been updated in 30 yearsFriends With Benefits is the essential podcast for Reward and Benefits leaders. New episodes every fortnight.🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube so you never miss an episode.Timestamps:00:00 What makes benefits different from the rest of reward01:28 In the news: only 53% of employees use their workplace benefits04:00 What good engagement actually looks like: 60–75% is the benchmark05:02 What Adam walked into at Fastmarkets06:28 The process: global broking, minimum standards, one platform09:10 The Finland moment — ClassPass, tax rules, and a launch that landed flat10:40 What he'd do differently: the timeline was too ambitious11:40 Test payroll before you go live13:14 The equity and equality problem with global minimum standards15:26 Phase two: total reward statements and the feedback loop17:00 When too many benefits becomes a catalogue19:00 Onboarding and making sure people know what they have21:00 Medical inflation and the compound cost problem23:25 Why people click now and read the small print never27:35 Why Fastmarkets doesn't let employees take cash out of the allowance29:18 The paternalism debate: guardrails vs choice30:27 Hot take: you're only as good as your supplier's systems</p>
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‘Friends with Benefits’ is the essential podcast for rewards and benefits leaders.
Hosted by Carl Chapman and David Duckworth from Ben, each episode brings together top minds in benefits and HR to unpack the latest trends shaping the world of benefits. Think AI, employee engagement, ROI, and more. Expect real talk with industry innovators and bold ideas you’ll want to steal.
If you’re building better benefits, this is the podcast your CPO wishes you’d listen to.
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