Employers urged to take holistic approach to reward

TOTAL REWARD

Employers urged to take holistic approach to reward

Effective HR management requires a holistic reward strategy that links not only pay programmes and benefit packages but also career opportunities and understands the relationships between these various reward components, according to an article in a recent issue of WorldatWork Journal, the prestigious US reward publication.

Determining the return on rewards investment

The authors of the research, Steven E Gross and Haig R Nalbantantian who are principals at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, outline an innovative approach to reward that uses measurement - quantitative techniques and statistical modelling using employee, operational, financial and marketplace data - to:

• determine what an organisation actually values - in terms of skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour
• analyse the impact of a broad spectrum of reward programmes - a mix of pay, benefits and careers - on "human capital" and, in turn, on an organisation's profitability.

The study is based on the experience of a leading international hospitality business. It also features three mini-case studies that focus on the implementation of total reward strategies in different and challenging environments.

Designing a total reward strategy

The hospitality organisation's goal was to develop a thorough understanding of both its current and desired reward strategy. Its starting point was to interview key executives to establish the "business context".

In addition, five years of employee and organisational performance data were statistically analysed to "isolate drivers of employee behaviour and property performance".

And the result of this qualitative and quantitative analysis? "The company could identify the key skills and outcomes it was looking for and determine the rewards that could support their development, " write Gross and Nalbantantian.

Want to know more?

Title: "Looking at rewards holistically", by Steven E Gross and Haig R Nalbantantian, WorldatWork Journal, second quarter 2002.

Availability: Contact WorldatWork, 14040 N. Northsight Blvd, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA AZ 85260, tel: 001 480 951 9191 or email: worldatworkjournal@worldatwork.org.

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www.worldatwork.org/Content/Infocentral/info-periodicals-frame.html

For further details about WorldatWork visit www.worldatwork.org.

Posted 2 September 2002