Companies prioritising career development opportunities – Korn Ferry Hay Group

When it comes to rewarding employees above and beyond base salaries, companies are prioritising career development – more than other alternative rewards, benefits and bonuses, according to new research by the Hay Group division of Korn Ferry. After career development opportunities, spot cash bonuses are poised to see growing usage in many organisations for functional roles below executive levels – increasing at more than 46% of companies, across both manager/professional and clerical/skilled trade employee levels. These programmes have grown in prevalence as organisations look to better align their strategic business objectives with employee recognition.

Tom McMullen, rewards practice leader at Hay Group, said:

‘When it comes to rewards strategies, cash is still king, though the use of financial and non-financial recognition awards is growing. Cash rewards don’t need to come in the form of traditional base salary increases or incentives. Peer-recognised cash awards for “caught in the moment” actions and results by employees are being increasingly offered in response to successful achievement of targeted objectives, such as collaboration, innovation, customer or operational impact.’

Key results

• Nine in ten organisations (90%) surveyed employ four or more alternative methods of rewarding employees – including career development programmes, spot cash bonuses, health and welfare benefits, enhanced capital accumulation programmes, gift/merchandise programmes, community impact programmes, additional paid time off and other benefits/perquisites – as part of their human capital strategy.
• More than eight out of ten organisations said that alternative rewards are key to being an employer of choice (89%), remaining competitive (87%) and engaging employees (81%).
• 87% of respondents also agreed that alternative rewards are an important tool in retaining the organisation’s existing talent.
• Over the next year, the vast majority of organisations (71%) plan to increase their use of alternative rewards.
• More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) plan to expand their use of alternative rewards at the manager/professional level and below, while the rate is slightly lower for executives, at 53%.
• Across all employee levels, career development programmes are poised to see the biggest expansion in use during 2016. More than half of respondents indicate they intend to expand the use of such programmes across all employee levels.
• A significant majority of survey respondents (73%) agree that the importance of alternative approaches to employee rewards will only increase over the next three to five years, while only 2% believe they will decrease in importance.

McMullen said:

‘These findings underscore what we are seeing with our clients and their focus on putting together career development frameworks across the entire organisation – from the staff support ranks up to executive levels. Even within the upper echelons, career – and leadership – development opportunities are critical to developing the competencies that can help elevate employees to the C-suite or prepare them to take on new functional roles.’

‘The Korn Ferry Hay Group Alternative Employee Rewards study’ analysed data from 242 US medium- to large-size organisations, primarily from the HR function. Data was gathered in February 2016. For more information, please visit: www.kornferry.com/press/korn-ferry-hay-group-alternative-employee-rewards-survey-shows-companies-prioritizing-career-development-opportunities/