Crafting Your Total Rewards Strategy
There are several reasons why enterprises today are thinking more about how they want to craft their total reward strategy. Employee satisfaction across the board is one of the key considerations here. Knowing how to address employee satisfaction is critical to this equation. Crafting your total rewards strategy is an integral part of building a strong organization.
Listen to Employees to Know What They Really Want
Whether someone is in the C-Suite or working an entry-level position, competitive organizations need to attract and maintain the top talent in order to keep and grow market share. This is only going to happen for enterprises that give employees what they want when it comes to total rewards.
There are a few things that need to be considered here. First, while people generally think that good pay and benefits are the two most important aspects to total rewards—not everyone is on the same page about how this should be defined. Preferences differ between individuals, especially when it comes to generational demographics. In order to properly meet the expectations of employees when it comes to total rewards, you have to listen to them.
Beyond just total rewards for individuals, many workers today also expect their employer to be a positive influence on greater society. Listening to how employees want the enterprise to interact with communities large and small is another factor that plays into total rewards today. While these might not necessarily lead to bigger paychecks, especially younger generations are putting greater demands on their employer to be good corporate citizens. Mercer’s 2021 Global Talent Trends Survey found that “50 percent of employees want to work for an organization that offers responsible rewards.” This is a far cry from the idea that simply paying people more will placate them. You can only know how much to factor this into total rewards if you take the time to listen to employees.
Find the Right Resources for Crafting Your Total Rewards Strategy
Once you’ve determined it’s time to put more focus on employee listening and other practices for crafting more desirable total rewards, it’s time to get to work on accomplishing these things. No matter the size or scope of a company, doing this will likely be a tall order.
There’s a lot that needs to be considered when formulating total rewards packages, especially if you’re serious about keeping as many people as possible satisfied. Working with a partner company to provide consulting and technology services can be a smart move. These are a couple ways working with an external agency can help with building a total rewards strategy:
- Using data more effectively – Building a total rewards plan begins with collecting data from employees to understand their wants and needs. But this is only the first step. That information needs to be synthesized in a way that it provides tangible value. An organization that has deep experience in total rewards will know how to do this more effectively than internal teams.
- Create more flexible frameworks – Just as sentiment has changed to get where it is today, it will keep evolving into the future. Organizations that get stuck on thinking people are a certain way are missing the big picture. The total rewards concept is about constantly discovering what people really seek out in their workplace.
Beyond these considerations for improving the employee experience through total rewards, enterprises also need to think about this on the flip side—closing pay gaps. Even though progress has been made over recent decades to make these pay discrepancies smaller, they still exist. An effective total rewards strategy will find solutions that make them a thing of the past.
The need for a comprehensive total rewards strategy has never been more prevalent. Enterprises that want to keep talented workers need to find ways to make them feel valued, both through compensation and other actions. No matter what, listening to employees will be central to success here.
Crafting Your Total Rewards Strategy
