Is ‘good enough’ really good enough when communicating your total rewards programs?

My dad always said, “If you’re going to do something, do it right the first time.” I think that lesson holds true on just about everything I do. Well, except for my handyman skills. I know my limits and sometimes I’ll fix something so that it’s ‘good enough.’ It’s not that what I’m doing is necessarily wrong, but I know there’s likely a better solution for my problem and it usually requires that I hire someone for the job.

I hear the same thing from organizations when we talk about communicating their total rewards programs. Almost always, organizations commonly describe what they're trying to achieve in communicating about their total rewards programs:

• Raise awareness and appreciation of their total rewards programs
• Highlight lost opportunities
• Expose the hidden value of their programs
• Increase employee engagement

Like my handyman shortcuts, many organizations use solutions that don’t quite meet all of their communication objectives such as:

• Their company intranet which may not be able to import data from third-party systems and personalize the total rewards experience.
• A vendor retirement administration site that's self-serving, as the content and data are only focused on wealth building or retirement planning.
• Their health benefits enrollment system that's focused on the transactional elements of their benefits that may only change once a year. Or
• An HRIS system that can't bring in external data sources and may only include a view of basic total compensation without supporting content.

These solutions may indeed be 'good enough,' but they don't tell the whole story of the value of your total rewards programs.

In today’s environment, more employers are communicating their total rewards programs in a comprehensive way. The WTW 2022 Pay Clarity Survey found that 52% of respondents use “total rewards statements” with another 33% either planning to use or considering use of total rewards statements to communicate their pay programs. Total rewards communications are no longer nice to have. They are required to attract and retain key talent.

When evaluating total rewards communication solutions, make sure your provider brings together personalized content and data to create an interactive and immersive total rewards experience. The ideal experience should include:

• Branding and personalized content that reflects your employee experience
• Behavior-based nudges that drive employees to maximize use of their programs
• Outbound single sign-on connections to simplify the employee experience from one platform to the variety of third-party vendors that provide your benefits
• An embedded benefits survey that gathers insights on what employees value most
• Video and alternative content that connects employees with content that suits their learning styles
• Robust analytics that track site usage so the experience can evolve over time and address what employees are looking for the most
• Distinct content for managers, as employees rely on them as a trusted resource who can provide guidance on how to best use the benefits your company offers.

Combining relevant content and data into one solution gives you the best chance of meeting your communication objectives and changing employees' behaviors and perceptions. A dynamic total rewards experience that provides employees with real-time access to information on the full suite of the programs they're eligible for and participate in is one such example.

If you don't capture and convey information on your full total rewards portfolio to your workforce, you're only telling part of the story, which is sort of like my drywall repair skills. Good enough, but certainly not great.

Author

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Michael Tyukodi

Senior Director, Employee Experience

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