Total reward statements are a powerful way to showcase the full value of your employee benefits package, helping employees understand and appreciate everything you offer beyond their base salary.

But simply generating these statements isn’t enough. To unlock their full potential, organisations need to focus on how they’re designed, delivered, and communicated.

Whether you’re leading Reward strategy in a large enterprise or managing HR in a growing business, here’s everything you need to know about creating and maximising the impact of total reward statements.

What Are Total Reward Statements and Why Do They Matter?

A total reward statement is a personalised summary that shows employees the complete value of their compensation and benefits package.

This includes not just salary, but also bonuses, pensions, perks, and non-financial benefits such as training and wellbeing initiatives.

When employees see the bigger picture, it helps close the gap between their perceived value of their employee benefits and the actual value they receive.

This is crucial, as many employers offer great and even market-leading employee benefits packages, but their employees simply don’t know about it.

Increasing the perceived value of benefits can help significantly boost recruitment, retention and employee engagement and help businesses get a true return on their investment.

Total reward statements can help do this in a low cost, yet highly effective way, when done right.

Key Components of an Effective Total Reward Statement

To make your statements impactful, businesses can include:

• Base Salary: The foundation of your compensation package.
• Bonuses and Incentives: Annual or performance-based rewards.
• Pension Contributions: Employer and employee contributions.
• Benefits and Perks: From healthcare to lifestyle benefits.
• Learning and Development: Training, certifications, and career support.
• Work-Life Balance Initiatives: Flexible working, wellbeing programs.

Using bold, clear visuals and easy-to-read language ensures employees can quickly understand the value you provide.

Delivering Total Reward Statements Effectively

How you deliver these statements matters as much as what’s in them. Consider:

• Digital Access: Hosting statements on a secure, easy-to-access platform.
• Integration with HR Systems: Going one step further and embedding within your HR software suite for seamless access.
• Personalisation: Tailoring content to reflect individual benefits and career stage.

Modern total compensation statement software makes this process simple, automating updates and ensuring accuracy and true visibility of one’s total rewards package.

Communicating the Value Year-Round

Don’t limit communication to once a year. Reinforce the value of your rewards through:

• Onboarding: Introduce new hires to their full benefits package early.
• Lifecycle Events: Highlight relevant benefits during key moments like promotions or parental leave.
• Campaigns and Reminders: Use email, intranet, and manager briefings to keep rewards top of mind.

Using Data to Drive Engagement

Track engagement with your total reward statements to understand what resonates.

Are employees opening and reviewing their statements? Which benefits are most valued? Use these insights to refine your approach and personalise communications.

Aligning with Business Goals and Company Culture

Total reward statements are a great place to emphasise company values and culture, putting front and centre the benefits that align the most with the company’s culture.

The right employee benefits provider can help you tailor your total reward statements in many ways including imagery, branding and the way you deliver the information relating to how employees have been able to utilise your employee benefits.

With digital total reward statements, it’s now much more accessible for businesses to utilise the power of total reward statements as yet another channel to improve the relationship between employees and the employer.

Paper-based Total Reward Statements

Many businesses do still continue to provide total reward statements in paper form posted to employees to communicate the value they’ve received every year.

While this may seem an outdated approach to some, there is still a time and a place for this kind of employee benefits communication.

Statements delivered this way can make for a welcome break from the bombardment of digital communications some employees receive, while also potentially even ensuring these statements reach more employees.

For those with disparate workforces without regular digital access, paper-based statements delivered to the employee’s address can still be an effective way to communicate the total value of an employee’s benefit package.

Conclusion

Total reward statements are clearly a strategic tool employers can utilise to boost engagement, retention, and transparency.

By leveraging total compensation statement software, integrating with HR systems, and communicating effectively, you can ensure employees truly understand and value everything you offer.

At The Access Group, we’ve been supporting over 2,000 businesses for over 15 years with our comprehensive employee benefits and engagement solutions.

Total Reward Statements are just one part of our comprehensive employee benefits, rewards and engagement offering, which is also deeply integrated within our wider HR software suite.

Ready to see it for yourself? For more information on how we can help you and your business, get in touch today.