In today’s highly disruptive and competitive business environment, traditional approaches to compensation and benefits no longer suffice to attract and retain the multigenerational workforce. Employees want rewards that are innovative, personalized, transparent, and flexible to meet their unique needs. To support new business operating plans and employee preferences, total rewards strategies should be aligned to corporate mission, goals, and values.
A new report series from The Conference Board, in partnership with E4E Relief, explores how organizations are responding to these challenges by transforming their total rewards programs—including compensation, benefits, recognition, and well-being initiatives. Notably, these organizations are creating total rewards frameworks that drive business results and reinforce behaviors and values. Organizations are using technology like apps and AI-driven platforms to improve the employee experience, expand offerings, and derive deeper insights into their effectiveness.
“What we’re seeing is a fundamental transformation in how organizations approach total rewards,” says Rita Meyerson, Ed.D., principal researcher at The Conference Board. “The most successful organizations are those that can balance innovation with practicality, ensuring their total rewards programs are both comprehensive and sustainable.”
Key findings from the report include the following.
- Reward strategies are evolving to support better business goals. These include facilitating new business models and organizational structures as well as better recognizing employees’ contributions to business outcomes like sales, product development, and relationship management.
- Total rewards are critical levers to change employee behavior and build culture. HR leaders should reward desired behaviors that are in line with corporate values, appoint cultural ambassadors to cascade messages about how rewards and benefits support company culture, and support retention by preparing managers for difficult conversations about rewards.
- Total rewards should partner with CHROs and the C-suite to ensure the rewards strategy attracts and retains talent. Flexible rewards and benefits are being taken to a new level of personalization, like a choice on the balance between salary and benefits, or in-house portals and mobile apps that provide tailored information, individual reward statements with real-time updated, and targeted messages by employee type.
“The research clearly shows that the one-size-fits-all approach to benefits is obsolete,” says Diana Scott, U.S. human capital center leader at The Conference Board. “Organizations are now expected to provide personalized, technology-enabled solutions that address the diverse needs of multiple generations in the workforce while aligning with business objectives.”
Companies are moving away from rigid pay structures and toward sophisticated models that combine base pay with short- and long-term incentives. Total reward strategies are being designed to be responsive to employee, C-suite, and board feedback. Companies are aligning compensation frameworks with social responsibility efforts and broader business objectives. Performance-based incentives encourage mindsets among managers.
Well-being has become a foundational element of total rewards, with program elements like:
- lifestyle spending accounts;
- professional development opportunities and career coaching;
- real-time total rewards statements;
- company-wide shutdowns for collective rest periods; and
- dedicated leadership roles focused on physical, mental, and financial wellness.
Organizations are also leveraging data analytics and technology to revolutionize benefits delivery and are increasingly linking their total rewards strategies with broader ESG objectives, including emergency financial relief programs for disaster-affected employees, paid volunteer days and sustainability incentives, and cross-functional teams that collaborate to create and measure the impact of socially responsible benefits.
