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How to Wisely Spend the Total Rewards Budget

Written by Salary.com Staff

December 11, 2018

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In many cases having an annual budget is a definite plus. This is also true with businesses. Creating a budget plan helps to have a view of all vital expenses. It gives a detailed entry of which area a company needs to invest in and how much.

Part of a company’s annual budget goes to the workforce. Each year firms prepare a compensation plan. This covers salary expenses, future pay increases, pay changes, and other rewards and incentives.

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What is a Total Rewards Strategy?

It is a common mistake by most firms to only factor in a worker’s salary and basic benefits in the annual budget. This often causes budget shortages and unhappy workers. Today, workers do not only seek good pay and benefits. Most workers also seek companies that offer great reward schemes.

As a result, firms include a total reward strategy in their annual budget. A total reward strategy shows the sum of all rewards workers receive from their companies. It covers the numerous ways companies can reward their workers.

This approach aims to motivate the workforce using effective reward schemes. The success of this approach relies on a strong budget plan.

Five Component of Total Rewards

Companies need to have a deeper insight into total rewards for them to execute it well. Here are the five components of total rewards.

Compensation

This refers to the basic pay a worker receives from the company. This is in exchange for all the time, skills, and efforts that a worker gives the company. This supplies the worker’s basic needs. This includes food, clothing, shelter, and others.

Benefit

On the other hand, this package compensates a worker’s familial, emotional, and physical safety. These include health, dental, and life plans. Also, firms offer disability and retirement plans.

Wellbeing

Today, most companies recognize the need to satisfy a worker’s overall wellbeing. This is the reason they include wellbeing schemes in total rewards plans. A worker’s wellbeing is critical to attract and keep them in the company. This includes worker’s aid programs, DEI efforts, and employee resource groups. Also, it covers company events, flexible work scheds, and volunteer programs.

Recognition

Receiving basic pay, benefits, and wellbeing perks may not be enough for some workers. For this reason, firms devised recognition schemes. These rewards may include verbal praises, job promotions, and awards.

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Development

Taking things to another level is what development aims for. Firms design this scheme to supply growth for workers. These can take form in training, education, and mentorship programs. These allow workers to advance to realize their full potential.

Other Items to Consider Investing the Total Rewards Budget

Aside from these things that make up total rewards, there are also tools that firms need to invest in. These will help in improving plans for workers’ compensation and rewards.

  1. Traditional Salary Surveys

To create a strong annual budget plan for the workforce, data is critical. For this reason, most firms invest in salary surveys. These tools are great for offering certain pay data for companies. This gives insight into pay packages of thousands of job roles.

  1. Market Data

Aside from the traditional salary surveys, the need for market data is also vital. This helps expand the firm’s library of compensation data. This can offer pricing ability on scopes that does not appear on other salary surveys. But firms must opt for market data from reliable sources. There are tools that use HR-reported data sources for this.

  1. Benefits Surveys

It is not enough to offer basic pay and bonuses. Today, most workers value firms that offer good benefit schemes. Companies need to have insights on these using benefit surveys. It supplies info on how to use benefits to attract and keep workers.

  1. Compensation Management Software

This tool is vital to every business. It helps simplify processes, conduct analysis, and make better decisions. Companies can customize this tool to fit their business needs.

  1. Consultation

Lastly, firms need guidance to execute their annual budget well. For this reason, they would need a good consultation service. This can help assess a firm’s current pay program. It helps find areas in the annual budget that are doing great. At the same time, it helps find areas that firms need to improve on.

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A company’s annual budget plan can include diverse types of expenses. A big chunk of which goes to the workforce. Aside from covering the workforce’s basic pay, there are other aspects that need consideration. This includes total reward schemes for workers. Also, there are tools and tech that are vital to ensure the success of a company’s annual budget plans.

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