Your ERS - Talent Compensation and Benefits

ERS 4 of 10

In this series we are looking at creating, implementing, and executing an Employee Retention Strategy for the survival of your business over the next 24 months. 

When it comes to talent compensation and benefits it is critical to remember that you want your people to, love their work, but not work for love.  Too many employers compensate their employees the bare minimum because they can; but this practice simply means that these businesses are compromised in other ways e.g., productivity, employee retention, employee brand.  When employees are correctly compensated, they feel valued and perform better working in the best interests of the business and often becoming strong ambassadors for the business. 

So how do you ensure you are compensating correctly?  It’s a 1-2-3 approach.

1. When you are looking to make a new hire have an honest conversation with the candidate about their expectations.  Pro tip, 80% of employees prefer a compensation plus benefit balance.  Remember also that each generation has a preferred compensation to benefit ratio balance so don’t be tempted to apply a one size fits all policy. I also recommend that you discuss when a package review can be expected and what it may look like.  Remember that it is fair to remunerate an employee at their current worth, but you are hiring them based on potential as well, so, your expectation is for them to grow and develop and their expectation is for their package to do the same.

2. Do your market research and know what your competitors are paying, know what the acceptable current compensation bands are and consider current market conditions e.g., low unemployment rates.  Pro tip, when your teams are approached by recruiters to consider new opportunities encourage them to have the conversation and then report back to you on their findings.  This will give you the opportunity to remain current in the market and have a conversation with them around their package and satisfaction rates.

3. Be transparent and equitable.  70% of employees want income transparency and 67% demand equity.  This does need to be managed carefully as there are pros and cons.  There are several ways this can be done keeping in mind that employee packages are personalised so there may be range of representations. 

You can contact me any time for advice or to ask a question and remember RIPPLE has all the services you need to plan, implement, and execute all components of your Employee Retention Strategy.