TOTAL REWARD
Just trying to be a best place to work adds little to company performance
New research published by WorldatWork, the US reward association, concludes that branding your business as a "best place to work" will count for little unless much greater emphasis is placed on paying for performance.
According to Jay R Schuster and Patricia K Zingheim, the authors of the report, the time has come to rethink the total reward programmes developed during times of "re-engineering", "delayering" and the "war for talent". They reckon that there is little evidence to suggest that such initiatives provide real business benefits.
Rewarding results
All too often these programmes ignore performance and encourage entitlement, say Schuster and Zingheim. "The strategy relative to being a best place to work more likely has been linked to being an overall 'good employer', rather than trying to encourage alignment of people with the business."
The authors' central thesis is that providing an attractive total reward package must be tied to "performance excellence". Simply guaranteeing jobs, providing attractive work-life policies and encouraging personal development without having a "win-win understanding" makes poor business sense.
Schuster and Zingheim warn: "The emphasis in the better workforce deal for 2002 and beyond must be placed on rewarding performance through the total reward model not just a pay-for-performance slogan or two, but really doing it."
This means developing not only an attractive total reward package, but also an effective performance management infrastructure. Say Schuster and Zingheim: "If the hearts, minds and performance of the workforce are captured, companies will perform better."
A final word
"This requires more than merely measuring and responding to competitive or prevailing practice. It means next-generation total rewards designs that build on the best-place-to-work initiatives and add some substance to the often-pale cries to pay for performance." - Patricia K Zingheim and Jay R Schuster, Workspan, May 2002.
Want to know more?
Title: "Total rewards branding for global economic recovery", by Patricia K Zingheim and Jay R Schuster, Workspan, May 2002.
Availability: Contact WorldatWork, 14040 N. Northsight Blvd, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA AZ 85260, tel: 001 480 951 9191 or email: workspan@worldatwork.org.
For further details about WorldatWork visit . . .
www.worldatwork.org
Schuster-Zingheim and Associates is a pay consulting firm based in Los Angeles, founded in 1995 by Jay R Schuster and Patricia K Zingheim. As leading exponents of the "new pay" philosophy, Schuster and Zingheim struck a chord with many reward specialists because they provided a convincing vision of how reward systems should operate in the future, with a particular emphasis on strategic reward and variable pay. To find out more visit . . .
www.paypeopleright.com