There are many best practices in HR. One of the most talked-about areas is compensation and benefits.
To settle the confusion, we asked nine HR experts, “What is your best HR practice as it pertains to compensation and benefits?”
Here are their responses:
Put Yourself in a Candidate’s Shoes
Ask yourself if your compensation and benefits options are something you would be interested in if you were in your employees’ positions. There’s nothing more assuring than knowing you’re offering the best options to your employees by saying to yourself, “I would also like these options.” If you wouldn’t accept them, why would they?
Henry Babich, Stomadent Dental Laboratory
There is No One-Size-Fits-All
Fair compensation and benefits are critical to attracting and retaining employees. Fortunately, we have learned some of the best approaches to compensation and benefits from the best companies over the years. One of the top takeaways? There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Every company is unique, due to the desires of their respective workforces. If you are truly looking to establish best practices for compensation and benefits, ask employees what they want. Do they feel fairly compensated? What is their favorite benefit? What is their least favorite? By learning what employees want, employers can customize their approach to a critical aspect of their business.
Denise Gredler, Best Companies Arizona
Review Your Offers Regularly
Take a look at the compensation and benefits you offer employees (financial or otherwise) on a regular basis. Things can change quickly in these areas, with competitors increasing salary levels or enhancing their benefits packages. Your company needs to keep up with the trends to attract great talent! Better compensation is one of the top reasons why people accept a new job. To retain your employees and attract new talent, make sure to periodically review your offering to make sure you are still competitive.
Align Your Benefits With Your Values
Have an organizational set of values around what they want out of compensation and benefits. Then create a strategy and benchmarking to ensure that compensation and benefits are equitable and competitive.
Ron Rapatalo, Edgility Consulting
Use Data to Inform Decisions
Understand how the compensation data is generated. The better quality of data, the more accurate your benchmark will be. Not taking time to vet the data quality could cost your company thousands of dollars.
Understand the Employee
The best practice in HR is human practice. Understand the employees and work with them. Through my years of experience, I have seen HR professionals get upset and frustrated when trying to go over comp and benefits with an employee who does not understand it. We have to keep in mind this is something we see and deal with on a day to day basis but the employee does not. Take your time, get to know them, and their learning system. We are here to be a guide and a resource.
Andrew Aziz, HRBP
People Over Profits
Human capital is our largest asset. We need to start paying our employees what they are worth. In addition, we need to cut the use of contract employment and offer more paid time off and health benefits to our workforce. Too many individuals are getting caught in an endless string of contracts because larger companies are choosing profits over people. It needs to stop.
Deborah Bubis, Recruiter & Sourcer
Don’t Forget Your Starters
Have a leveling system in place before you grow quickly and make sure you rectify the pay of early employees so they aren’t left behind. As companies scale, they tend to increase salaries for new talent to be above market rate but the folks who took a risk (and oftentimes a pay cut) to work at a young startup are left behind. Decrease the risk of friction and do the right thing by the people who believed in you from the beginning.
Sharissa Staples, Business Operations Analyst
Be Transparent
Maintain transparency about what is being offered and give a holistic understanding of the benefits/comp makeup to candidates. This gives them a sense of how your business operates and allows both parties to assess if a working relationship is viable.
Austin TeNgaio, Talent Acquisition
