Design your future-proof Global Rewards strategy now

Future of work, workplace and workforce

Due to technological and demographic trends combined with globalization, you, as employer, encounter disruption. Not only the type of work is changing, but also the workplace and consequently the workforce you need. COVID-19 has speeded up these developments. Other skills and talents are needed. New jobs, like drone operators, pod cast producers and block chain specialists are required. As employees can now work from anywhere in the world, a totally different competition playing field is created.

How to attract, retain and develop your workforce of the future

The current environment has accelerated the new and more flexible way of working. More than 60% of companies are redesigning jobs around robots and artificial intelligence. The future workforce is diverse in backgrounds and capabilities, hungry for opportunities and evolving new skills and capabilities, as well as flexible and agile. However note that at the same time, the new employee is complex to manage and lead, demanding and expects reward to align to their professional goals and personal preferences.

Making an impact with your Global Rewards strategy

New ways of working will not drive performance and results unless traditional Reward structures evolve to meet changing workforce expectations and desired organisation outcomes. You can think of international remote workers which change the local competitive environment. How will this work? The best way forward is to reinvent a suitable reward strategy by embracing non-traditional features, adapted to the specific needs of the future workforce. One of the key elements is flexibility. At the same time labour costs should be managed and new talent models accommodated.

The Future Reward experience

Organisations will continue to embed market rewards (“table stakes”) at the heart of any Reward strategy to provide the fundamental, baseline required to attract and retain talent by meeting worker expectations, market and social norms. But the world is changing. 56% of the organization have redesigned their compensation/ rewards strategy in the past 3 years yet 64% of the organizations plan to redesign again to align with the changing trends of Future of Work, COVD-19 and employee expectations. (Source Human Capital Trends Report of Deloitte)

Motivator rewards and flexibility

In the early twentieth century, pay was considered to be a key motivator in the workplace , but we now know there's more to motivating employees than money. The first step is to understand what drives your staff members, what do you want as a company and then work towards developing relevant programs.

• Impact accelerators; rewards which promote and encourage specific outcomes, performance or behaviours. You can think of immediate peer incentives of small amounts during the year.
• Talent investments; rewards which invest in the skills and capabilities of the workforce, like courses or on the job training.
• Culture carriers; like selecting goals from the 2030 agenda for sustainable development or the diversity agenda, aligned to the social enterprise. This creates opportunities for workers to undertake projects which support the organisation’s mission.
• Well-being drivers; here you can think of Rewards which enhance the workforce experience, like Flexible and personalized time-off policies or well-being challenges.

In order to offer your employees their own personal rewards experience whilst taking care that your cost will not go through the ceiling, you can install a flexible rewards platform. In such a platform individual reward choices can be recorded and changed at any time, within the limits from a financial, tax and employment law perspective.

Build a future-proof Global Rewards strategy in 7 steps

Now is the time to see investment in your workforce as a priority. This is your guide to set up a future-proof strategy step-by step, win the war for talent and get the most out of your employees.

1. Be prepared , design your Global strategy in all transparency and fairness. A Global Rewards Lab can be the basis.
2. Include the wishes of your employees. Make an inventory through an employee survey.
3. Include all stakeholders, like the Works Council or Unions , from the start.
4. Integrate not only a competitive salary package, market rewards, but also motivator rewards, aligned with your company philosophy.
5. Make a clear cost and benefit comparison of the traditional and the new approach.
6. Keep the package individually flexible as well as manageable, think about a flexible reward platform.
7. Communicate, communicate and communicate, explain the new package and the reasoning behind the changes, clearly, to all stakeholders.