The pandemic has caused many of our clients to rethink the investment in their people to better facilitate remote work, provide more inclusive and supportive benefits, and establish equitable pay practices to create resilient, engaged teams.
CEOs and HR leaders are listening more closely to employees and taking their feedback about total rewards to heart so their companies can more effectively attract and retain top performers. It’s an exciting time as the workplace redefines itself, but it’s also a little nerve-wracking with needs and expectations changing so rapidly.
HR leaders are particularly challenged as they scramble to meet management directives to reevaluate the company’s investment in its people and analyze where their compensation, equity awards, bonuses, and benefits stand in relation to the rest of the market.
Traditionally, getting to a basic level of understanding of total rewards competitiveness has been a time-consuming yet imprecise process. HR teams had to chase down benchmarking information and pull reams of employee data spreadsheets to get a handle on how much they can and should be offering team members across the organization. And often, by the time they’ve pulled all of that together for a board presentation, that information is a bit dated. With all that HR has on its plate in today’s fast-moving talent market, that just doesn’t work anymore.
Our clients have told us that they need access to a single trustworthy source of real-time employee data that’s accessible in just a few clicks. But what can be even more powerful is the ability to view that employee data through the lens of an integrated benchmarking resource to quickly get those a-ha! insights into where your compensation or equity awards are below market or where compliance problems might arise.
With everyone taking on so much more in the COVID era, it’s important to have answers like these within easy reach:
- Are we compensating certain departments and positions adequately?
- Where are we losing people?
- How is our rewards approach performing in different geos? Functions? Roles?
- Are we offering the right health plans and wellbeing benefits?
- Is our 401(k)-match competitive?
- Where do we stand with pay equity and our DEI efforts?
I see how companies are struggling during the Great Resignation with making the right investments in their people, and I’m also energized by what our team at Sequoia has done over the last year to generate some thoughtful and innovative solutions to streamline and simplify this process for our clients.
Over the last year, we’ve been working on a new suite of technology solutions aimed at bringing holistic and actionable people data to the fingertips of HR for their boardroom discussions and daily decision-making.
For our clients, we have a new Insights dashboard in our HR service portal, Sequoia HRX. The Insights dashboard brings together an unprecedented amount of people related benchmarks and data points unique to the client, including workforce analytics, pay and equity data, benefits and wellbeing cost and utilization, and forecasting and modeling capabilities. It is one place for HR to get insights to support critical activities, such as board meeting reports, executing on projects, and effective collaboration with their CFO and CEO.
And when needs become more complex and additional guidance and expertise is required to tackle complex projects, our Total Rewards Advisory team is there to help clients navigate that process. By taking advantage of these capabilities, we believe our clients will be able to make hiring decisions more quickly and formulate a measured and strategic total rewards program to boost retention of existing employees.
I think we’re all a little exhausted from COVID’s constant pivot, but if there’s one silver lining, it’s that it has forced us all to take a harder look at what we’re doing for our people. I applaud the HR leaders who are leading this charge and helping drive big changes across their organization. Just remember, we’re here to help lighten the load. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team if you have questions about your company’s total rewards program.
