TOTAL REWARD
Benefits of total rewards far outweigh costs
Every reward practitioner knows that total rewards represents a proven route to boosting employee engagement, says Paul Bissell writing in a recent CIPD performance and reward blog. So why is it, he asks, that all too many companies still struggle to make adequate use of the concept?
Bissell, who is Head of Reward for Cable & Wireless Worldwide and also managing director of Strategic Reward Solutions, an independent rewards consultancy, says: “As reward professionals we should be in the vanguard of bringing about this shift in thinking and facilitate the education of managers and employees to view their ‘reward’ in the broadest of terms.”
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So what barriers to progress are there? Bissell outlines five main stumbling blocks that organisations perceive they face in putting total rewards into effect.
1. There is a belief that what is needed is a complex systems solution. Says Bissell: “It is true that data is important and the ability to display that data in an accessible form is exceedingly useful in articulating total reward. But I would suggest that this not the real reason behind a failure to adopt the total reward approach.”
2. There is still a belief that monetary reward is the primary way of recruiting and retaining people. Bissell explains: “Not surprisingly in these organisations the need to talk about such esoteric things as the quality of leadership in the organisation, or the organisations values and principles, seems irrelevant. It’s also probably perversely even truer that these same managers will not know all the benefits that they receive because of their monetary focus, so they can never fulfil their full potential as primary communicators.”
3. Some HR functions are not fully integrated, or perhaps more commonly, are so under resourced that “spending time creating the total reward solution is more of an attractive day dream than a strategic goal,” says Bissell.
4. For some organisations, it all comes down to lack of money. “When budgets are tight, or being cut back,” says Bissell, “then work is prioritised and what hasn’t been done before stands no chance of being done now.”
5. For some it’s about a lack of time. Bissell argues that all of these reasons for not pursuing total rewards are “delaying tactics”. He reckons that the “benefits to be derived will far outweigh the time, costs, systems changes etc, that may (or if you are extremely resourceful may not) be needed.”
Want to know more?
Title: "Your Money or Your Life?", by Paul Bissell, CIPD blog, 8 June 2010.
Availability: The blog can be viewed at www.cipd.co.uk/news/_rewardgroup.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s performance and reward blog is aimed at HR and reward professionals. It's intended to “promote and stimulate thought leadership and increase awareness and understanding around pay, benefits and non-financial reward”.