Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group is rolling out online total reward statements (TRS) for its employees based in Asia Pacific to reinforce its total reward package at a time of modest pay increases.
The rollout began in Australia and Malaysia on 1 July and is due to end with Japan in November. Statements will also be launched in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
Jim Cowan, head of benefits at RBS, said: "We see a golden opportunity to reinforce the total reward message. In the current climate, we might expect a fairly modest outcome in terms of pay review, but we are keen to emphasise the total value of the package."
The banking group embarked on the project in the summer of 2010 when it carried out a feasibility and cost-analysis study. It then drew up some parameters to define which other countries would benefit most from TRS.
Cowan added: "We decided we could reap similar value in a number of our other locations. The construct of the package clearly differs as we move from one country to another.
"The challenge of bringing those differing packages to life, and being able to draw employees' attention to the overall value of the package, is that it is not really one solution that can be rolled out to a number of countries. There is a lot of tailoring that needs to be done."
In four Asia Pacific countries, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, where RBS offers flexible benefits schemes to staff, it previously provided a simple benefits statement. "The work we have done there is really to take a product that has been in place for some years, a benefits statement, and enhance it into a total reward statement," said Cowan.
RBS has subsequently identified four more countries, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Thailand, where an online total reward statement, provided by Thomsons Online Benefits, would be of value, although it has no plans to introduce a flex scheme in these locations.
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