Extract from IDS Executive Compensation Review 326

Latest trends in reward management

Benchmarking is about more than how much to pay – it is also about how to pay and how reward supports wider strategic business goals. To gain an insight into reward management practice, every year the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) conducts a survey looking at the latest trends and a summary of its latest findings are analysed in this article.

Reward professionals will be active this year, says the CIPD, mainly amending benefit packages, but also looking at pay progression arrangements and bonus and incentive schemes. Indicating where they were seeking to make changes in 2008, half of the reward professionals surveyed by the CIPD in late 2007 said they would be modifying their benefits provision. In addition, around a third said they would be revising their existing incentive or bonus schemes, while a similar proportion indicated they would be changing their pay progression arrangements. Pay and progression structures are reviewed in this article, as well as variable pay and benefits, and tables are provided showing the proportions of the various pay and progression systems applying to four occupational levels.