Remuneration Strategy:

How to Use Remuneration to Gain a Competitive Edge

An effective remuneration and reward strategy is an essential tool to support overall business objectives and performance. This comes as no surprise when you consider that the investment in employee remuneration represents one of the biggest costs to the bottom line – one that can blow out if not kept in check.

By treating remuneration as a strategic investment, your remuneration strategy becomes your competitive advantage.

A good remuneration strategy will:

Allow you to attract, engage and retain key talent

Promote and reward behaviours that align to your values

Help you to ensure remuneration is fair and equitable across your organisation

Ensure what you pay is market related

Motivate employees to increase their productivity and performance

Control employee remuneration costs

So, what is a Remuneration Strategy?

A solid remuneration strategy will include:

Some form of job evaluation or sizing – there are several methodologies available to buy off the shelf and apply. Alternatively, engage with an expert to develop your own system based on key criteria within your environment

External market data and benchmarking – utilise salary surveys to gather this critical information. Most recruitment agencies release free surveys each year, and there are several paid options that will provide data more specific to your industry, location and Company size. We recommend using a combination of the two for the most accurate picture.

The design and implementation of remuneration structures. Usually this will be remuneration bands associated with each role – based on the job size and your external market data

Integration with your performance appraisal process. Your performance review outcomes should be one factor that feeds indirectly into annual remuneration reviews, along with Company performance, CPI changes and other external market factors.

In some cases – the design of some form of incentive scheme. Again, this should be indirectly linked to your performance review process and may range from monthly or quarterly commissions/incentives to an annual discretionary bonus.

Consideration of other benefits – i.e. non-monetary rewards such as medical insurance, additional annual leave, uncapped sick leave, flexible working practices etc.

An administrative system to support the strategy and processes. This may be assigning one of your team to manage the process and maintain the documentation, or you can utilise specialist software

Flexibility – the strategy must be responsive to changes in the organisation and external market.

Positive People can help. If you are interested in developing a Remuneration Strategy for your business, or reviewing your current practices call us on 09 445 1077 or email info@positivepeople.co.nz

Managing your Team with Empathy:

Providing real support during traumatic times

Life events wash over all of us.

Keeping a team engaged and enthused despite outside personal pressures can be challenging for even the most skilled Manager. No matter how great your culture or team environment, when employees are faced with a major life event how you support them through this period can make or break their commitment to you and your business.

We have all had team members who have children with serious illnesses, overseas bereavements or other traumatic events to deal with. Company policies often don’t provide guidance on how to balance the organisation’s needs and the needs of the individual.

There can be a lot of pressure and stress involved in traumatic personal situations.

In circumstances like these, employees need to deal with the personal situation facing them, ensure they keep earning, as well as making sure they are not letting you and the team down. How you manage this is critical. No amount of future development opportunities offered can ever recover the loss of trust that occurs if their situation isn’t empathetically managed.

Building a business that balances empathy, fairness and overall standards, while allowing flexibility to manage at an individual level is key to making this a success.

To do this well we suggest:

Know your team

Encouraging genuine relationships where your team are comfortable to let you know about personal challenges. This helps you to manage these situations for best results for the individual and business. If you have a team member who suddenly starts disappearing at 5pm on the dot this should raise questions – perhaps they just have a gym class to get to but also, could they be getting home quickly to help a sick partner with the kids? Do you know and would they feel comfortable telling you?

Encourage the use of EAP or specialist support services

Managers aren’t counsellors and there is no expectation that you can help your team process grief or deal with complex mental health issues. You do however want to make sure expert support is available for these situations, so that your team members are able to return to full health.

Allow Management discretion in the application of policies

Having fair guidelines for everyone ensures an even playing field in your organisation. However, there must be room to make exceptions. If you have a team member having important medical treatment do your Managers have the flexibility to change shift patterns to accommodate this? If a team member suffers the loss of a child can extended bereavement leave or AL be taken? We don’t think any of us would expect 3 days leave would be enough to cope with a situation like this. Company policies should not hamstring Managers from making sensible, compassionate decisions.

Consider extensions of leave entitlements for special circumstances

You can allow anything that is over and above minimum statutory entitlements. You don’t have to wait until 6 months for bereavement or sick leave and you can give additional leave in special circumstances. You have a range of options available to you should it be needed, so making sure you consider this and have flexibility to support your team members through tragedy or traumatic events can make the world of difference for them.

People have long memories, and even though work is important it quickly takes a back seat when something personally traumatic happens.

Having Company standards but managing individual pressures will help to gain future commitment and engagement from your whole team and is – in the end – the right thing to do.

Positive People have 24 years’ experience helping organisations develop policies that provide clear expectations and help to get the best from your team. Contact us now if you need help.