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11 Apr 2016
by Debra Corey

5 superpower tips to get your rewards package right

I was meeting with my CEO the other day to discuss the results and recommendations from our global rewards review, and he made an interesting comment. He said: "You don’t have an easy job, do you?"

This was not something I expected to hear from a CEO. He is someone who is making critical business decisions 24/7 and I didn’t expect him to understand the challenges we face in getting our rewards package ‘right’. 

But then again, he isn’t a normal CEO. He is one that gets it. He gets how difficult it is to create a rewards package that will drive performance and engagement and, at the same time, manage costs. Not an easy thing to do! 

It made me ask myself: How do we get it ‘right’? How do we overcome the challenges we face to create a rewards package which is right for our company and our employees?

I believe we do it by using what I’m going to call our ‘super powers’, which give us the wisdom and strength to overcome these challenges.

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Now unfortunately there is no fancy cape to give us these powers, but here are five ‘super power’ tips which may help you:

1) Start with strategy

A rewards strategy should always be the starting point, giving us instructions on what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. If we don’t have a rewards strategy, to put it bluntly, we shouldn’t be talking about our rewards package! 

Think of yourself as a superhero flying to save people from a burning building Would you take off on your journey without knowing where you were going? So, be strong and use your super powers to insist on having a strategy first, and have it agreed up front. This ensures you arrive where you need to in order to save the day with your amazing rewards package.

2) Make it meaningful and relevant

An important objective is to make our reward packages meaningful and relevant, thus ‘right’ for both our company and our employees. The superpower to use here is telepathy. Unfortunately we can’t read minds, but we can listen to the business and our employees to understand what is in their minds.

If our rewards package is not meaningful or relevant it can often lead to ones which do not deliver an ROI (return on investment) or VOI (value on investment), which are outcomes we are trying to achieve.

3) Ignore the noise

I often talk about the concept of ‘noise’ when I talk about communications, and it applies here as well. Think of noise as the distractions which move you ‘off course’, away from your rewards strategy and objectives. You know this: it’s when your business partners or employees come to you with those great ideas, reward programmes that they just have to have. Now I’m not saying that what they say is not valuable, as often they’ve brought me the next amazing reward programme. But  you need to determine what is noise (eg. no link to your rewards strategy) and what is of value (clear link to rewards strategy). 

So, use your super powers to be strong and focused, and stay true to your rewards strategy and don’t let the noise take you off course.

4) See the big picture

It’s critical to see the big picture when developing our rewards package, for without doing this we may end up making mistakes or going in the wrong direction. Using the example of the superhero flying to save people from a burning building, think of how important it is to understand what is happening around us. Is there a villain waiting at the building to challenge us? Is there storm on the horizon which will make it difficult to save the people?

Use your super powers to see the big picture and understand if there are any ‘villains’ or ‘storms’ which may cause you challenges.

5) Focus on communications

Last but not least, a superhero needs to be known, so my last ’superpower’ tip is the ability to get the message out there. If our business partners and employees don’t understand or appreciate the rewards strategy and rewards package, then our objectives will not be met. Use your communication superpowers, and focus on communicating this important information in an effective manner.

Best of luck to you all in being the superhero at your organisation through your rewards package. Use your super powers to develop and deliver a rewards package which is ‘right’ for your company and employees.

Debra Corey is group rewards director at Reward Gateway

This article supplied by Reward Gateway.

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