Neal Blackshire

EXCLUSIVE: Neal Blackshire, director of global total rewards at fast food chain McDonald’s, will be giving the closing keynote about rewards strategy on Wednesday 6 October at Employee Benefits Live 2021.

‘Adapting rewards and benefits on a global scale’, will take place at the end of the first day of the conference, and will focus on managing rewards and benefits in a globally decentralised organisation, meeting the local needs of employees in various regions, and looking to the future for reward strategy.

In conversation with Employee Benefits editor Kavitha Sivasubramaniam, the keynote will cover the business’ global reward strategy and its support of values and global strategic plan, as well as the increased interest and desire for wellbeing benefits and calls for heightened transparency to prove fairness and equity.

Blackshire will also share practical learnings from his own experience about how reward offerings have been adapted since the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.

He said: “Employers must be aware of the importance of designing and deploying reward and benefits plans that fit with their company culture, and align with what their workforces want too. If they don’t, they will be a waste of time and money, and may need to be completely overhauled.”

Blackshire hopes that those attending the keynote will learn more about how to listen to and help their employees in the future.

“From my session, I hope delegates will gain an appreciation of the fact that what they are doing should be a practical exercise, rather than just a theoretical one. They need to adapt rewards to meet the needs of employees, wherever they are around the world,” he concluded.

Employee Benefits Live 2021 will take place on Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7 October 2021 at ExCeL London.

For more information or to register for the show…