Looking for a more holistic way of approaching reward? Try total reward. “Total reward is a way of thinking,” explains Carole Hathaway, reward practice leader EMEA at Towers Watson. “It’s how HR processes come together with the employer value proposition. It’s about attracting, retaining and engaging talent.”
According to Hathaway, there are three stages of reward. Foundation reward: “the things you get for turning up”. Performance-based reward: “the things you can influence”. And career and environmental reward, around wellbeing, career management and L&D: “the things people really appreciate and what makes them stay”.
While career development and training opportunities may traditionally be in the talent and L&D spheres, Hathaway says she includes them in total reward because that’s how employees think. “If companies are going to appeal to people, they need to think in a more holistic way,” she says.
Towers Watson research also finds companies combining a total reward strategy with a strong employee value proposition are twice as likely to have highly engaged employees and five times more likely to report higher financial performance than their peers.
For HR, getting on top of total reward means busting out of silos, working out the costs of everything, making sure there’s alignment between all the basic programmes and getting the measurements right.
