Strategic reward and recognition programs engage and motivate employees

Workforce rewards are part of the talent strategy framework supporting your business goals. But ‘rewards’ means different things to different people and having a counterbalancing organizational perspective is equally important. And so, it’s crucial to design your employee reward program specifically for your people.

Standard employee reward and recognition programs are ineffective

To truly motivate your people to perform and engage them in the values of your culture, having the right employee reward programs is critical. But in this era of the individual, ‘rewards’ means different things to different people at different times in their lives.

In order to fully leverage the potential of rewards as an employee engagement and talent attraction tool, organizations now need to go beyond the traditional contractual rewards of pay and broad-brush benefits plus ad hoc components.

To tailor their value proposition, companies have begun using ‘personas’ to identify what matters most to target populations and to operationalize their employee rewards program for distinct groups.

Innovative rewards programs effectively address an individual's preferences – enabling them to feel healthy, supported and energized, personally as well as professionally – while staying within organizational and cost realities. A balance can be achieved with the right reward and recognition strategy.

Effective workforce rewards strategy design now requires: 

  • Embracing the differentiated needs of a diverse, multigenerational workforce, and using the relevant employee engagement mechanisms for each
  • Understanding individual employee experiences and categorizing those experiences into personas
  • Having mechanisms in place to enable individuals to voice their preferences 
  • Holistically addressing employee needs with a more nuanced and flexible approach
  • Considering all perspectives: personas, organizational needs, industry standards, regulatory landscape, competitor offerings, cost, and societal values
  • Formulating a rewards program that harmonizes with your other employee value proposition (EVP) offerings, and 
  • Assimilating the latest compensation data, employee research and workplace insights so you can build what works.
This new world order – one that is more nuanced and personalized – requires new organizational skills of listening, learning and adapting to identify and address unmet needs.
Ilya Bonic

President, Head of Strategy and Career, Mercer

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