Every organization has its strategy on how they view and manage its employee salaries and benefits. Whatever the method, there has to be a written set of rules and regulations that stipulates how the whole process should be carried out.
Proper and transparent benefits administration will motivate employees. It could also be used as a tool to attract new employees.
Compensation is not only the salary you are given; it also includes health benefits and retirement benefits to name but a few.
In this article, we are going to look at some of the key elements that will ensure companies effectively compensate their employees.
Let’s delve into specifics
Company budget
All companies run on different budgets. The budget a company allocates is what will determine what percentage will be spent on salary and how much will cater to employee benefits and other incentives.
Once a company has allocated a certain amount for remunerations, for example, 90% of the amount could go to salaries, 6% to health benefits, 3% to retirement benefits and 1% to tuition reimbursement.
By doing this, a company controls the amount of money they use on benefits thus avoiding other miscellaneous costs.
Have salary ranges
One great benefit of developing salary ranges is to ensure your company has a competitive advantage within companies in the same industry. As such, business owners should never underestimate the importance of benchmarking similar jobs and creating a pay structure.
Before determining how much remuneration to allocate for a certain job description, companies have to research to determine the average salary paid for a specific job in a certain geographical area.
If your company does not have an established HR department that could do research, you could decide to hire a vendor who will develop salary ranges for your company.
Salary audits
We live in a world of constant change. Some changes occur overnight while other changes are gradual. In business, markets change. It is, therefore, important for a company to perform regular audits on their salary remuneration.
Why is that?
Salary audits will help a company ensure that the amount of salary they have allocated for a certain job description reflects the current compensation trend for the position in the industry.
The whole purpose of conducting a salary audit is to determine the level of competitiveness of a particular job and have a complete understanding of the external marketing demand.
Pay attention to changing demand in the market and stay current to avoid the loss of valuable employees.
Benefit package
Benefit packages are used by most organizations to retain and attract new employees.
The main goal is to have a better package than its competitors in terms of health, retirement, and reimbursement. This is a crucial factor especially for a job candidate who is thinking whether to accept or decline a certain job offer or an existing employee who is deciding whether or not to leave their current job.
You will be amazed at how many people stay with organizations for decades because of the great benefits that are hard to walk away from.
Employee performance
Every company should have a structured system where they use to evaluate an employee’s performance based on set company guidelines. A performance management system should be used to ensure employees are meeting company goals and hitting company targets.
Besides, having the right compensation strategy can positively influence how employees engage with customers and with each other. This could go a long way in improving employee productivity.
Legal compliance
It is equally important for companies to come up with benefits and compensation strategies that incorporate legal requirements that comply with federal and state laws.
The whole point is to do away with biases during the hiring process and complying laws that address minimum wage and overtime pay.
Structured administration
Just like any business process is important, its structure is equally important. As such, companies should develop a structure that involves salary audits and an annual review process of employee benefits.
For the process to run smoothly, a company should assign someone to oversee the compensation process. This is to make sure it is executed fairly. This is one of the ways a company will build an environment that recognizes employee efforts and rewards good performance.
A successful company is measured in their hiring approach, how clear their expectations are, and how they reward their employees for a job well done.
