Did you ever wonder how effective your compensation communications are? I can hear your answer from here -- it's bound to be a resounding "yes" if you are an HR professional. And in the last decade, the eternal question, "Are we doing it right?" has been joined by, "Should we use social media?" on our list of worries.
The writers of the Compensation Cafe are vigilant about new research that can address your concerns. I'm pleased to be able to alert you to some valuable insights on social media use from Willis Tower Watson's recent "2018 Modernizing Total Rewards Survey Report."
The firm considers "pay" the first component of Total Rewards, followed by "Benefits," "Wellbeing" and "Career and Development," so it's clear that the findings do apply to compensation. To clarify the framework of their research, the firm indicates that, "Among the key expectations of today's employees is that rewards will be . . . delivered via a . . . consumer-grade experience similar to what they've come to expect in their personal lives."
While few of us can fully deliver at that level of sophistication, a "consumer-grade" experience should be used as HR's rule of thumb beginning now. It gives us a clear target, and enables us to measure how close our time and money investment will come to addressing 2018 employee needs for communication and understanding.
Want to know what other companies are doing? The survey findings indicate that these technology platforms are most commonly used to communicate Total Rewards:
- Intranets (72%)
- HR portals (54%)
- Social media (36%)
- Mobile apps (22%)
Willis Towers Watson's differentiates "leading" vs. "lagging" companies in their participant group. "Leaders" are twice as likely to use digital technology: 56% of "leading" companies compared to 25% of "lagging" companies. In Towers' study, "leaders" are organizations that have fewer difficulties attracting and retaining talent in general, and across key employee populations. They are also companies that are more than twice as likely to report outperforming their industry peers compared to "lagging" companies. It's fair to say that their communications efforts contribute to that success.
The communication effectiveness bar is set high for everyone, and moves up from one year to the next. This finding is an important reality check for compensation communicators: " . . . even among those employers that use technology well, only close to a third (31%) have already created more transparency within their organization."
It is especially important for compensation practitioners to remember that, in our part of Total Rewards, the quality of the information we provide often matters more than the communication channels (like social media) that we use. I bet that if you set your transparency "bar" higher by communicating more details about, and insights into, your compensation plans, the word would get around without much investment in technology.
Just sayin'.
PS: Be sure to check out the full report for more insights into Total Rewards strategy and design.
Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career development and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides market pay information and designs base salary structures, incentive plans, career paths and their implementation plans. Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. A former Board member for the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA), Margaret coauthored the popular eBook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, a toolkit that all practitioners can find at https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.
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