Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Compete with Total Rewards Programs

By Priscilla Kohl, HRTools Staff Writer

How do small to medium-sized businesses compete with the larger corporations? One way to compete is by re-evaluating and re-thinking the traditional compensation and benefits package.

This is good news for employers looking to (1) save on benefits' costs and (2) recruit and retain highly skilled, talented and motivated employees. Many attractive candidates today are actually looking for benefits that cost an employer relatively little or nothing.

Certainly many potential employees still look for the traditional costly benefits packages, but many talented candidates do not care about or need those types of conventional benefits. Some (for example, those who have sufficient medical coverage through a spouse’s employer), are looking for what Human Resource (HR) professionals refer to as "Total Rewards" programs. While other candidates still "want it all," meaning high salary, a maximum benefits package and lots of ‘perks,’ a high percentage of candidates are looking for intangibles that are relatively inexpensive.

According to Robert L. Heneman, a professor of management and HR in the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University, "Employers have had to find alternative forms of rewards that cost less to implement but that still motivate employees to excel."

A Total Rewards Program is Music to Employees’ Ears

The Alliance for Work-Life Progress, affiliated with the WorldatWork, The Total Rewards Association, a global human resources association, states that "Total rewards include everything the employee perceives to be of value resulting from the employment relationship."

Certainly all employers want to attract, hire and retain the best employees possible. A total rewards program is a tool to help businesses accomplish that objective. The long-term goal is retention. You want to keep your employees — along with their skills, knowledge, experience and talent — with your organization as long as possible.

Any Employer Can Develop a Great Place to Work

In his book, A Great Place to Work, What Makes Some Employers So Good (and Most So Bad), author Robert Leving states, "How can a company win on this battlefield? By creating a genuinely appealing workplace, one where current — and prospective — employees want to spend their waking hours."

Genetech, based in San Francisco, is known for consistently making numerous "Best Places to Work" lists. Considered to be one of the leading biotechnology companies in the country, their Web site acknowledges that employees are critical to their success. Therefore, their statement says, "We are dedicated to remaining a great place to work and to providing employees with programs, services and benefits that allow them to bring their best to the business and to their personal lives."

They walk the talk as their online benefits-listing page indicates. They offer total rewards that emphasize a strong work-family culture including benefits such as the following:

Childcare and mother’s rooms (for nursing mothers)
Sabbaticals of six consecutive weeks (after six years of employment)
Onsite services to help employees save time (laundry, banking, salon, car washing, etc.)
Recognition and rewards programs
Tuition assistance

They and other successful companies also offer "total rewards" benefit programs that include flexible work schedules, telecommuting, compressed work weeks, access to legal counseling and classes and seminars devoted to personal growth. Obviously not every employer can afford complimentary legal counsel for their employees. However, flexible work schedules, compressed work weeks and telecommuting are not only mostly cost-free, these programs can actually save on operating budgets and they are also viewed as environmentally friendly initiatives.

Again, quoting Dr. Heneman: "A well-thought-out and skillfully implemented rewards program can give your organization a competitive edge. In particular, it can help you generate the business outcomes that matter most to your strategy—whether those outcomes take the form of employee retention, productivity, job satisfaction or service quality."

More information and resources about Total Rewards programs is available at Alliance for Work-Life Progress.

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