Build — and keep — a better workforce with a total rewards strategy

With ongoing change in organization culture, workforce, and a competitive talent market, organizations are evaluating new strategies to attract, engage, and retain a quality workforce.

Total rewards is an emerging human capital management system for HR and business executives. Unlike traditional compensation approaches, a total rewards strategy can help organizations develop a comprehensive package of monetary and nonmonetary rewards that align with the company's goals, culture, and values.

Learn how a total rewards strategy works and how it can help your organization attract and retain talent.

What is a total rewards strategy?

A total rewards strategy delivers value and experience to the entire workforce, regardless of age, seniority, or position. For most organizations, a total rewards strategy consists of various combinations of compensation, benefits and perks, and rewards and recognitions.

A well-designed total rewards strategy can result in:

• Increased employee engagement, retention, and performance
• Increased organization revenue, customer satisfaction, and quality

There are three core elements to a strong total rewards strategy:

Compensation

How an employee is paid can include hourly rate, salary, commission, bonus, equity, stipends, and monetary awards, like gift cards. As more states adopt the Pay Transparency Act, it’s imperative that organizations evaluate their compensation structures to facilitate market alignment.

Organizations that don’t offer competitive compensation will struggle to attract qualified applicants and may experience internal pay equity issues that can be detrimental to employee retention.

Benefits and perks

These programs traditionally include health insurance medical, dental, and vision, wellbeing programs, 401K matching, employee assistance programs, meal discounts, vendor discounts, parking, onsite gyms, childcare, laundromats, and more.

In response to workforce expectations and needs, organizations are expanding benefits and perks offerings to include remote work, workplace flexibility, wellness, parking, childcare, transit, etc.