Top tips for producing Total Reward Statements

More and more organisations are looking to engage with, and communicate better to, their employees the value of their total reward package, often through introducing or reviewing their existing Total Reward Statements.

From our experience of producing statements for organisations over a number of years, we have pulled together some useful top tips to consider for producing effective Total Reward Statements.

Paper versus online Total Reward Statements

Some organisations choose to use an add-on to an existing Flexible Benefits or HR software system, to make their statements available online. Whilst this can be a convenient solution, employers tell us that a proportion of their employees do not bother to log into the system and therefore do not see their statements. It is down to individual preference but we find people often prefer information in a printed hard-copy format as it has greater impact. Nevertheless, you will need to decide whether to go with paper or electronic statements (either online or an emailed file).

Ensure correct branded 

It is important that your statements reflect your brand and are consistent with other forms of communication from your organisation, both in terms of format and messaging. We often work closely with a communications or marketing function to design statements; a useful reference tool is your company ‘brand guidelines’ document.

Include as many reward elements as you can

There is no shame in promoting as many of the reward elements that you provide to your employees as you can. Organisations often leave elements off if they are difficult to quantify financially. However, we often address this by including a glossary/descriptive section as part of the statement, for example describing a discounted canteen or free car parking.

Include graphs and imagery

It may sound obvious, but we often see statements that are made up of purely text and numbers. Include branded pictures to brighten up the statements and a graph to highlight to employees that they do not just receive a salary.

Timing 

This varies from organisation to organisation, although many choose to produce and distribute their statements just after their pay review for maximum impact. This brings its own issues though, since post-review salaries and bonus payments are often not updated on systems until relatively late in the process. For that reason, it is important to...

Do not underestimate the time/resources required 

Whether producing statements yourself or using an external provider, organisations often underestimate the amount of work that is required in designing, producing and distributing statements. It doesn't have to be a troublesome process however; indeed, we are often asked by our customers to print and distribute the statements on their behalf, in order to minimise the impact on their resources.

Total Reward Statements have long been a valuable and effective way to communicate the reward package. If you are considering introducing Total Reward Statements, would like more information or are interested in outsourcing this activity, please contact us.