Total compensation and why you should care

Total Compensation: all of the resources available to employees, used by the employer to attract, motivate and retain employees.  Emphasizing everything your organization is offering your employees is a great way to attract, motivate and retain the best talent.  Most employees tend to underestimate the value of their benefits and perks.  You can change that perception by showing them the true value of TOTAL compensation. 

Employees are always looking for something better – something more.  With the job market improving, candidates will be selective when evaluating job offers.  Those great candidates, you know the ones, will probably receive multiple offers at once.  You want to be the one on top with the best foot forward and the best TOTAL compensation.

Once you have them, you want to keep them!  Regular reminders of their total compensation package to help keep them excited is important, and do not get complacent because there is always a recruiter or another company to entice that great employee away.

Total compensation can be used in many ways, but here are three simple ways to improve your program

  1. Be Flexible:  It is easy to offer just the basics for Health, Financial and Wellness benefits, however not everyone will value the same benefit in the same way.  Every employee is different and has different needs and interests.  The benefit package should be varied and flexible enough to be appealing to most employees.
  2. Communicate Often:    A total rewards program does not do you any good if you are not communicating all the benefits and rewards regularly to your employees.   Make it a regular practice, keep it simple and graphically illustrate the big ideas.  Current annualized benefit statements are best communicated annually during new benefit offerings, before performance reviews, and during the interview process.    
  3. Evaluate Regularly:  So you have a great compensation program in place, now what?  As the business environment changes so should your benefits.  Evaluating your benefits regularly allows you to add value with new benefits as well as keep you current employees engaged and loyal to the company. 

Now is the time to analyze what you are currently doing, how it matters to you or how it could potentially influence your business overall.  Take a step back and look at your total compensation. Are you being effective, or would you like to see improvement? 

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