Best fit vs best practice: 3 keys to developing a compelling rewards offering

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

InsideHR, October 8, 2018

by Pete DeBellis



It’s a good time to think about your company’s rewards offering – not just because it’s essential to stand out in tight talent markets. But also, because you may be missing out on a valuable opportunity to attract candidates who are more in sync with your company, more likely to perform well, and more likely to stick around.

You can tell if you are missing this opportunity by answering a simple question: What information does your company use to design its rewards offerings?

If the answer is simply “best practices,” you’re not alone. It’s common practice to set rewards based on competitive benchmarks: just figure out what your competitors are offering and match or beat it. The problem is that a best-practices approach to rewards can be a prescription for mediocrity and anonymity in recruitment and retention.

Bersin’s High-Impact Total Rewards research reveals that high-performing organisations aren’t following the best-practices pack. Rather they are unapologetically different when it comes to rewards, and what makes them different is their approach to rewards design. They give a nod to best practices and benchmark data to make sure they understand what’s being offered by other companies. But they follow a best-fit approach to rewards that is tailored to their organisation.

The primary focus of the best-fit approach is finding candidates and keeping employees who are already aligned with your company. These are the people who like to do things the same way things get done in your company. And they are predisposed to go where your company is going.

Bringing a best-fit rewards offering to market

A properly designed rewards offering should represent a differentiated brand in and of itself. It entices the candidates you want to come to you. There are three principal steps to designing and bringing such an offering to market...read the rest here