Total Rewards Flashcards
Total rewards strategy
Plan or method implemented by an organization that provides monetary, benefits-in-kind, and developmental rewards to employees who achieve specific business goals.
Total rewards
- Direct and indirect remuneration approaches that employers use to attract, recognize, and retain workers
- All forms of financial rewards that employees receive from their employers
Benefits
- Tangible payments or services
- Provided to broad groups of employees to cover issues such as retirement, health care, sick pay/disability schemes, life insurance, and paid time off, in addition to those required by law.
- Internal and external training and development that employees receive is also considered a benefit.
Compensation
- Refers to all other financial returns (beyond any tangible benefits payments or services)
- Includes salary and allowances.
Perquisites
- Compensation provided on an individual basis in the form of goods or services.
- Examples of perquisites include automobiles and mobile devices.
Incentives or premiums
- Payments in return for the achievement of specific, time-limited, targeted objectives.
- Often calculated as a percentage of base salary.
- Payment may be made in a lump sum or as ongoing payments over a specified period of time.
Components of Total Rewards System
- Compensation
- Benefits
- Flexibility
- Social interaction
- Stability
- Status/recognition
- Work variety
- Workload
- Work importance
- Authority/Control
- Advancement
- Work conditions
- Development opportunities
- Personal growth
Compensation philosophy
- Short but broad statement documenting an organization’s guiding principles and core values about employee compensation along with how they will reward competitively
- Framework for consistency and transparency
- “Why” behing pay - supports organization’s strategic plan and helps attract, retain and motivate employees
Compensation philosophy development
- Typically developed by HR and executive team
- Should be in place prior to developing total rewards strategy
Total Rewards Strategy Process
- Assessment
- Design
- Implementation
- Evaluation
- (Circles back to assessement)
Assessment Stage of Strategy Process
- Look at current processes and the effectiveness of reaching goals
- Conduct employee surveys
- Evaluate negative behaviors that are overlooked and compensated
Design Stage of Total Rewards Strategy Process
- Senior management team and HR identifies and analyzes reward strategies to determine what would best apply in their workplace
- Decisions make on what will be rewarded and what rewards will be
- Consider pay rewards along with benefits/personal development opportunities
Implementation Stage of Total Rewards Strategy Process
- HR department implements the new rewards system and communicate the new strategy to employees.
- Training for department managers to effectively measure the achievement and employees understand what they need to accomplish to receive the rewards.
- Implementation efforts need to support the long-term needs of the organization to ensure a sustainable business model.
Evaluation Stage of Total Rewards Strategy Process
Evaluates how well the system achieves its goals:
- Cost-effectiveness
- Compliance with laws and regulations
- Compatible with mission and strategy
- Match organizational culture
- Appropriateness of workforce and equity
What influences the size of an organization’s compensation package?
- Degree of market competition
- Level of product demand
- Industry characteristics
- Life-cycle stage of the organization
Cultural Alignment of Total Rewards
National and organization culture influence how people perceive the value of rewards available and compensation
Entitlement-oriented
- Compensation program that promotes a caring, protective feeling that makes employees feel as if they are a part of the family.
- Feels that employees are entitled to benefits as a condition of employment.
- As benefits increase - less emphasis on individual employee contributions and responsibility and more emphasis on the success of the organization as a whole.
Contribution-oriented
- Emphasis on the performance and contributions of individual employees.
- Emphasizes performance-based pay, incentives, and shared responsibility for benefits.
- Ex: the firm may require copayments for medical insurance.
What is the most common approach towards compensation?
- Most are moving away from entitlement approach toward performance approach
- Some have an approach in the middle
Reward Systems Alignment with Workforce Preferences
- Consider type of workforce (ex: entry level will have different package than highly educated professionals)
- Suveys can be done to see what would be preferred to analyze your workforce
Equity in Reward Systems
- Fairness of compensation and benefits paid to employees
- Can be internal or external
External equity
Organization’s compensation levels and benefits are similar to those of other organizations that are in the same labor market and compete for the same employees.
External equity: organizations compete with others that share their same
- Industry
- Occupation
- Location
Lag market competition pay strategy
- Controls labor costs by setting pay rates below those of other organizations
- May be used because of economic necessity
- May enable an organization to offset other higher costs such as purchasing, distribution, or sales expenses
- Typically will offer other benefits such as learning and development, attractive roles via career paths, etc.
Match market competition pay strategy
- Offers wage rates and benefits packages similar to that of the competition
- Often referred to as being externally competitive
- Most common approach
Lead market competition pay strategy
- Offers higher wages and/or better benefits in an attempt to attract and keep the best talent
- Rationalizes that higher-quality employees are more productive, which makes up for the higher salaries
Correct pay strategy depends on
- The value the employee adds to the organization’s success
- Competitivness of the market (supply vs demand)
- Degree the organization can afford to pay for a strategy
- Where the organization wants to place itself as an employer of choice.
Multiple Pay Strategies
- Organizations can use combination of pay strategies.
- This can cause moral issues and lead valuable employees to seek jobs in other organizations.
Pay Strategies Include
- Lag market competition
- Match market competition
- Lead market competition
Issues and Challenges in Global Compensation and Benefits
- Standardization vs localization
- Culture
- Competitive labor market
- Collective bargaining, employee representation, and government mandates
- Economic factors
- Taxation
Reasons to Communicate Total Reward Systems
- Educating employees about the organization’s total rewards practices.
- Achieving employees’ buy-in and making them aware of the overall value.
- Supports organization’s strategic objectives.
- Supports goals for performance management.
What do you need to help employees understand regarding their pay?
- The pay system and how their pay is determined
- This reduces conflicts between employees and management regarding pay
Challenges to Transparency in Total Reward Systems
- Complete openness (when employees know how much coworkers are paid)
- Causes jealousy and performance problems and may question fairness
- Risk of employees using info for inappropriate or unintended purposes
- Need to preserve employee privacy and protect proprietary information
- Can do middle group (pay ranges are communicated by individual salaries are separate)
Considerations when communicating total rewards
- Type of information (required and voluntary communication)
- Communication plans
- Direct communication
- Individualized total compensation statements
- Self-Service Technologies
- Consistent key messages
Required communication
- Communications that are mandated by laws and statutes
- Due diligence is required so that organizations understand the requirements of applicable laws, regulations, instructions for any applicable forms, or other official guidance
Voluntary communication
- Above the mandated communication on total rewards programs
- Approach that outlines policies and procedures and the exceptions that managers and HR communicate to employees
Communication Plans
- Direct, person-to-person communication is sometimes better than written communication
- HR/Manager meet with individual employees in a confidential setting to communicate compensation and benefits issues
- Employee should have the opportunity to ask questions
Individualized total compensation statements
Show total value of the base pay, incentives, and benefits packages so employees can clearly see the value they receive in the total compensation package
Employee Self Service in communicating benefits
- Increased accuracy of employee data
- Improved timeliness in information and employee transactions
- Reduced dollars spent on other traditional HR delivery channels (e.g., paper-based transactions)
- Enhanced reputation as a “green,” environmentally conscious employer.
Compliance with total reward systems
- Standards and regulations set forth by international organizations
- Ex: International Labor Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, and the European Union, as well as treaties and agreements
- Extraterritorial application of national law.
- Application of national laws to international-owned subsidiaries operating within a nation’s borders.
Extraterritorial laws
Extend certain legal requirements of a home country to the activities of its citizens traveling or working abroad and of its entities—such as corporations—operating in host countries.
How HR can ensure compliance in comp & benefits
- Research local laws vs. organizational practices
- Involve experts - internally or externally to validate complex local compensation and benefit pacakges and requirements to stay compliant
Compliance with Total Rewards Systems
esearch local laws versus organizational practices. Involve experts, internal or external, to validate particularly complex local compensation and benefits practices and requirements in order to implement compliant and culturally accurate programs.
Payroll methods
- Internally (in-house)
- External vendor
- Hybrid of both methods
Steps in Compensation System Design
- Job Analysis
- Job Documentation
- Job Evaluation
- Pay Structure
Job analysis
- Studying a job in order to identify the activities/tasks and responsibilities
- Conducted of the job (not the person doing the job)
- Identifies KSAs
KSA Knowledge
Body of information necessary for task performance
KSA Skills
Level of proficiency needed for task performance
KSA Abilities
Capabilities necessary to perform the job
Job Analysis Gathers InformationOn
- Job context
- Purpose of the job, its work environment, its place in the organizational structure
- Job content
- Duties and responsibilities of people who hold the job
- Job specifications/qualifications
- KSAs required to successfully peform the job
- Performance criteria
- Desired behaviors/results that will constitute performance in the job
Frequency of Job Analysis
- Current positions - regular and ongoing basis
- Minimum: when there is a vacancy or every two years
- Follow-up assessments for new positions should be completed within 6 months 1 year after job is filled to validate criteria and description as well as compensation
Job Analysis Methods
- Observation
- Interview
- Open-ended questionnaire
- Highly structured questionnaire
- Work diary or log
Observation Job Analysis Method
- Direct observation of employees performing the tasks of a job, recording observations, and translating them into the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities.
- Provides a realistic view of the daily tasks and activities performed in a job.
- Works best for short-cycle jobs in production.
Interview Job Analysis Method
- Face-to-face interview to obtains the necessary information from the employee, peers, supervisors, and team/unit members about knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform the job.
- Interviewer uses pre-determined questions, with new ones added based on the response of the employee being interviewed.
- Good for professional jobs.
Open-ended questionnaire Job Analysis Method
- Questionnaires to job incumbents, and sometimes to their managers, asking about the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the job.
- The answers are then combined, and a composite statement of job requirements is published.
- Produces reasonable job requirements because input is solicited from both employees and managers.
Highly Structured Questionnaire Job Analysis Method
- Questionnaires onlyallows specific responses
- Used to determine frequency with which specific tasks are performed, their relative importance, and the skills required.
- Defines job with a relatively objective approach, which also enables analysis to be performed using computer models.
- Good when a large number of jobs must be analyzed and there are insufficient resources to do it.
Work diary or log job analysis method
- Diary or anecdotal record maintained by the employee.
- Job information, including the frequency and timing of tasks, is recorded in the diary.
- Logs are usually kept over an extended period of time. They are analyzed, and patterns are identified and translated into duties and responsibilities.
- Provides an enormous amount of data.
- Method can be applicable to task- or process-oriented jobs (e.g., administration, call center operators, shipping and receiving, warehouse).
How to figure out what employees do on their job
- Obtain information directly from the job incumbent when feasible, although additional input may come from managers, coworkers, and other sources.
- Collect data from multiple job holders and supervisors.
- Select a technique that allows information to be obtained, summarized, and processed with minimal effort.
- Select a technique that is easy to update without having to repeat the entire process from the beginning.
Job Analysis Deliverables
- Job description
- Job specifications
- Job competencies
Job specifications
Written statement of the minimum qualifications necessary to perform a job.
Job competencies
- Clusters of highly interrelated attributes, KSAs, that give the behaviors needed to perform a given job effectively.
- These competencies should be part of a competency model.
Job description
- Written description of a job and its essential functions and requirements
- Includes
- Tasks
- Knowledge
- Akills
- Abilities
- Responsibilities
- Reporting structure.
Job Analysis Helps Design Compensation System By
- Set up evaluation criteria for job performance.
- Provides data for comparing pay with other organizations.
- Helps in assigning objective classifications or job titles to employees.
- Communicates expectations to both supervisors and employees.
- Improves an organization’s ability to defend unwarranted charges of discrimination.
- Assists with addressing legal compliance requirements (Ex: reasonable accomidations through ADA).
Job evaluation (job valuation)
- Process of determining a job’s value and price for the purpose of attracting and retaining employees by comparing the job against other jobs within the organization or against similar jobs in competing organizations
- Helps with pay equity
Job-content-based job evaluation
- Job evaluation method in which the relative worth and pay structure of different jobs are based on an assessment of their content (ex: responsibilities and requirements) and their relationship to other jobs within the organization.
- Addresses how jobs are broken down and assess different elements or factors (decision-making relationship)
Job-content-based job evaluation categories
- Nonquantitative methods
- Quantitative methods
Nonquantitative methods in job evaluation
- Referred as whole-job methods
- Evaluate whole job and sequence jobs in hierarchical order based on value in the organization (without numerical value assigned to each job)
- The sequence indicates that one job is more important than another, without giving an amount of job much more
Nonquantitative methods include
- Job ranking
- Job classification
Job ranking
- Hierarchy of jobs from lowest to highest based on each job’s overall value to the organization
- Evaluates whole job, not just parts of it and compares one job to another
Job ranking advantages
- Fast and inexepensive method of jobevaluation
- Easily explaigned to supervisors
Job ranking disadvantages
- May not be clear why one job is valued over another
- May not be a large difference between jobs, making ranking ineffective
- Not feasible when there are a large number of positions
Paired-comparison method
- Job evaluation method
- Each job is compared with every other job being evaluated
- The job with the largest number of “greater than” rankings is the highest-ranked job, etc.
- Used to compare all possible pairs of jobs
Job classification
- Job evaluation method
- Descriptions are written for each class of jobs
- Individual jobs are then put into the grade that best matches their class description.
Disadvantages of job classifications
- Process is subjective - wide variety of jobs and job descriptions, jobs could easily fall within more than one grade level.
- Relies on job titles and duties and assumes that the jobs are similar among organizations.
Quantitative job evaluation methods
Evaluate specific factors on a scale and provides a score that indicates how valuable one job is compared to another
Compensable factors should:
- Reflect the actual work being done.
- Be supported by documentation such as job descriptions.
- Reinforce the organization’s strategic plan and culture.
- Be valued by all affected parties (stakeholders).
- Be reviewed annually.
Point-factor system
- Quantatuve job evaluation method
- Looks at compensable factors (such as skills and working conditions) that reflect how much a job adds value to the organization
- Points are assigned to each factor and then added to come up with an overall point value for the job
- Most commonly used method of job evaluation
Market-based job evaluation
- Job evaluation method
- Relative worth and pay structure of different jobs are based on their market value or the going rate in the marketplace.
- Job content or internal job relationships may be taken into account
- Also known as market pricing
Market-based job evaluation process
- Market rates are identified
- Organizations pay rates are set in accordance with pay policies (rates can be at, above or below market)
- Organization jobs are slotted into market price and additional jobs may be placed into hierarchy as they compare with benchmark jobs
Advantage of market pricing
- External competitiveness
- Provides regional, objective basis for negotiating pay rates with individuals and groups
Disadvantages of market pricing
- Insufficient data
- Potential for poor job matching
Remuneration surveys
Collect information on prevailing market compensation and benefits practices (including starting wage rates, base pay, pay ranges, statutory and market cash payments, variable compensation, and paid time off).
Remuneration surveys employer options
- Develop and conduct internal survey
- Look to an external source (include subscribing to an already existing survey or working with service provider to conduct customized survey)
Internal survey advantages
Ability to shape the design, administration, data analysis and reporting needed by the organization
Internal survey disadvantages
- Competitors may not be willing to cooperate and to share their pay structures.
- Matching the positions may be difficult.
Internal surveys with independent consultant benefits
- The organization still maintains control over the internal survey.
- Outsourcing the task may place less demand on organizational resources.
- Enlisting the help of a consultant may ease any concerns about survey credibility; the recommendations from a person outside the organization are sometimes more acceptable to internal stakeholders.
- Can mitigate legal concerns
External surveys
- Groups like SHRM conduct surveys on wage/job data for wide range of professions, industries and locations
- May draw on extensive database of incumbents and industry benchmarks that provide insight
Choosing between internal and external survey factors
- Internal time and expertise required
- Relevance/match of external surveyed jobs to organization’s jobs
- How current external survey data is
- Expense associated with type of survey
Global market considerations regarding surveys
- External third party data is typically used
- Can be hard to obtain comparable salary data in many global markets
Survey data analysis
Survey data must be verified and may need to be aged, leveled and/or factored for geography (location)
Benchmarking
- Initiatives range from informal to formal engagements with private firms that provide current survey data sometimes in conjunction with consulting services for a fee.
- Gives insight about competitive compensation and benefit program policy elements (ex: pay strategy, compensation philosophy, initiatives)