Speaking in a session at Employee Benefits Live, the pair explained that the ongoing squeeze between wages and pay inflation, which has resulted in some employees having seen a drop in real income of up to 12% since before the recession, is driving the demise of total reward.
Brown said that the recession had changed reward and benefits irrecoverably and that pay was increasing, albeit slowly.
How went on to explain how she thought a shared responsibility benefits model between employees and employers would gain momentum in the future. The model comprises five or six core benefits coupled with a self-serve ethos for employees.
“Rosalind- thanks for this we were rather hoping for a reaction like this.. to get the conversation “out there”. The EB article doesnt quite reflect what we were saying- to be fair to them it would be very hard to do in a short piece. Duncan has written a 3000+ page paper on it! Please dont be put off by the headline. I agree “total reward” should be about shared responsibility but when implemented in practice, so many many times we have seen it fail to get this message across. And yes of course total reward does not equal flex- I certainly did not say that. If you would like to hear the full script let us know as we will be doing a full webinar on the subject. I agree with your last line but believe employers must be cognisant of the importance of cash sufficiency.”- Martha How, partner, reward and benefits at Aon
“TRS as a concept sold by EBCs whose primary motivation was selling their benefits consulting services, often skipped the worthy total reward principles applied and leveraged by companies who implemented total reward strategies successfully. And continue to use them today. Total reward as an engagement principle is alive and well; a keystone of EVP. While the challenges in communicating and engaging over reward persist, I think it is fair to say it is evolving rather than expired.” - Tristram Hawthorn, manager at KPMG