Each fall for a number of years, I have conducted an annual compensation planning survey among organizations in my market. My favorite part of the survey is the final open-ended question where I ask each participant "what reward strategies and tactics did your organization find most successful in attracting, retaining and motivating employees in 2009? (or whatever the most recent year has been)" The responses are always revealing and it is particularly interesting to see how they trend over time, through good economic years and bad ones.
This year's survey includes over 100 employers. Their top named reward strategies for 2009 - through what has for many been a year of unprecedented challenge and difficulty - are as follows:
Number 1: Paying for Performance. Participating employers cite their efforts to reward employee performance (37%) as the most successful strategy - the one that has paid off best in terms of employee attraction, retention and motivation - in 2009. Out of the performance pay efforts noted by participants, incentive compensation is mentioned the most often, by 23% of respondents.
Number 2: Maintaining Competitiveness. The reward strategy mentioned second most often (22%) is an effort to keep programs competitive during a difficult year. Specifically, maintaining salary (16%) and benefit (12%) competitiveness are the most common efforts noted in this regard.
Number 3: Communication. Communication is mentioned third most often (18%) as the strategy that paid off most in 2009 - specifically frequent, open and honest information sharing (17%).
Your thoughts? How does this match up with your reward experience in 2009?
Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/10/07/10709-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx
Wally Bock
Posted by: Wally Bock | October 07, 2009 at 12:45 PM