I recently spoke at the REBA leaders conference, ‘Getting fit for the future: a bootcamp for reward professionals’. I had some great feedback from the lively and diverse audience, so thought you would enjoy some of the highlights. This week I’ll share the first part of my talk: curating your employee deal.
The world of reward, like the world in general, is getting busier. Reward packages are getting fuller with more and more choices offered to employees. Many of the options are cheap for companies to include in their packages, so they do. I recently looked on a benefit provider’s site and found discounts for 870 retailers, over 5,000 products in their technology offer and membership offers on 100s of gyms. But more isn’t necessarily better. Too much choice, in a market where everyone offers the same, is overwhelming and doesn’t allow a potential new employee to get a feel for what your organisation is about. It doesn’t provide a stand out, differentiated employee deal to help your organisation attract talent.
So maybe it’s time to stand back, declutter, simplify and focus. Offer a curated employee proposition, that resonates profoundly with the talent you want to hire, and your organisation will stand out. When you’re thinking about your offer consider: is it joined up, does it focus on the long-term and is it meaningful?
We use our ‘pillars of reward’ when we are reviewing or designing reward offers for clients:
Taking each of the pillars in turn to identify what connects deeply with your employees and potential recruits is key.
Fixed pay: How do you pay against the market – are you a median, low or high payer and why? How do employees progress their pay?
Variable pay: What is the ratio of fixed to variable pay? What do you use variable pay to reward and how is it structured?
Benefits & culture: This is where you can be creative and really reflect your DNA in your deal. Think wider than the regular offerings.
Recognition: How and what do you recognise? Is your recognition individual or team or a mix of both? Do you use financial or non-financial reward as part of your recognition?
Performance: What is good performance in your organisation and how do you measure and recognise it? Are you very informal in your approach or do you take a more structured approach?
Engagement: Have you got an open and fluid approach to communication or hierarchical and waterfall? What language to you use to communicate and engage employees and how creative do you get with channels and media?
Fairness: Do employees feel fairly treated? Do you make it part of your offer to create a feeling of fairness and transparency? What job evaluation system do you use and do people understand it? What is your action plan and narrative for gender pay reporting? Do your employees understand how reward works?
Too many companies have ended up with a coalition of chaos because they’ve added and added without thinking too much about what adds the most value. Think about who you want to recruit and retain – what are their motivations likely to be. What is special about your industry and what makes your organisation unique. How can you reflect that in your employee deal?
So stop, think about quality and not quantity – decide what makes you special and reflect that in your deal.
Get in touch if you’d like advice or support curating your employee deal 020 3457 0894.
