Most UK companies are wasting money by not having a documented reward strategy in place, according to research from Thomsons Online Benefits.
Less than one in three companies (29 per cent) have a documented reward strategy and 35 per cent claim they lacked the ability to measure the success of new reward initiatives, according to the Employee Rewards Watch survey of 755 firms.
The biggest issue respondents reported in relation to their
employee benefits was that they were not well communicated, a
problem for 43 per cent of respondents. 16 per cent offer total
reward statements either on the web and a further 13 per cent
on while a further 34 per cent plan to implement them soon.
The benefits cited by the majority of those who had implemented total reward statements were that it improved understanding of both their reward package (62 per cent) and the value of their reward package (57 per cent). A further 18 per cent of respondents stated that it had reduced the number of benefit queries to the HR team while 11 per cent said it had improved employee retention and staff turnover rates.
Since the Employee Rewards Watch survey was started in 2004 the number of companies who have implemented flexible benefits has increased from 5 per cent to 23 per cent while a further 25 per cent are considering implementing flexible benefits plan to implement within a year.
The report also found that 76 per cent of companies determine their reward strategy at global head office level,
Michael Whitfield, chief executive of Thomsons Online Benefits says: “These findings bear out what we hear when we are out talking to the UK’s leading employers, namely that there is insufficient attention paid to measuring and evaluating reward spend.”
“We fervently believe that what you don’t measure, you can’t improve. Reward is one the largest costs in any business and in the increasingly difficult economic climate HR professionals can expect to be put under increasing pressure to demonstrate that this spend is being properly directed.”
