Employee Benefits Live 2016: Organisations found to use total reward as a strategy to improve employee retention.
Presenting at as part of the performance and talent conference stream at Employee Benefits Live 2016, Duncan Brown, head of HR consultancy at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), explained that employers are looking to pay increases as the most popular method for improving retention among staff and dispel unemployment.
He said: “In terms of the responses that employers are making, improving pay is the most popular response; that’s the kind of knee jerk reaction. To boost pay and assume that’s going to improve recruitment and retention.”
Brown commented that traditional total reward initiatives, such as increased training and learning, better recruitment processes, improved benefits, careers and career pathways, effective exit interviews and a better work environment, are being utilised by businesses to keep staff within the organisation.
In his session entitled Benchmarking reward and compensation structures: let the market rip, Brown also discussed the use of market pay reviews and how organisations can use this data to further understand pay structures and market supplements that are implemented.
Market pay reviews are a useful tool to spot check pay within the organisation; also helping an organisation to set salary ranges, new starter wages and support annual pay reviews. However, Brown questioned the impact of market supplements in skewing pay bands within an organisation’s pay structure, leading to much wider bands generally as well as more crossover between pay grades.
“What’s the internal perceptions if you are in the same grade but you’re getting a very different pay rate? Some employers I work for, that’s fine, that’s what the market wants. Other employers, that will be perceived as very unfair and I guess before you do anything, you have to find out what kinds of employer you are,” Brown said.
Brown also queried whether the data gathered from market pay surveys served to reinforce gender bias, stating that female dominated work is often undervalued and paid less.
To conclude, Brown advised: “Have a look, dig around, look at your local market and have a look at what the skills area is. Have a look at what’s driving engagement and retention. [In] our original engagement research that supports our model of engagement, yeah pay and benefits is in the mix, that affects how involved and engaged people feel, which affects their willingness to stay with [the organisation] and their willingness to perform hard. But it is only one of many factors and you need to get underneath of what is driving [engagement] in your organisation.”
