I can’t remember a time when it has been more critical to make smarter investments in your people. The transition to a distributed work environment hasn’t been easy, blurring the boundaries between work and personal life, while taking away much of the camaraderie and culture that gave the workplace meaning. In this new environment, many are evaluating what they want from their company.

The CEOs I talk to understand the importance of attractive benefits, compensation, bonuses, and equity awards, but they need a strategy and execution guidance to design a rewards system that is both compelling to candidates and rewarding to employees throughout their company journey. In this market, that can feel like a tall order, particularly as the pace of business has quickened over the last year.

Nobody wants to lose people because the company’s rewards and benefits weren’t correctly aligned with employee needs or because employees didn’t fully understand the value or details of the rewards package offered to them.

To come up with an effective total rewards strategy, executive teams and HR leaders deserve a single picture of their people investments and outcomes that pull holistically from multiple data sources. That includes data on compensation across departments, location, and tenure, as well as information on attrition and up-to-the-minute benchmarking data for each position. Once you have these insights, it’s much easier to both develop a defined rewards philosophy and execute specific tactics and programs that are effective for your organization.

Then once you have a rewards program dialed in, the real work starts – communicating it to your employees in a clear, compelling way that lets them see the path to a more secure financial future for themselves and their families.

As we all have seen, companies are moving away from one-size-fits-all fringe benefits and perks like office meals, commuter passes, or gym memberships, and are now offering more meaningful and personalized rewards focusing on financial stability, physical and mental health. The delivery of those rewards is more important than ever and needs to be clear and tailored to each employee’s exact package, and available anywhere they need it.

Our Total Rewards Advisory team have been helping our clients face this new, complex chapter where compensation philosophy must be intentional, defined, transparent, and equitable for all employees. I want to thank Kyle Holm and his team for being great collaborators in translating clients’ needs and opportunities into our Sequoia People Platform design process.

As always, myself and our service teams welcome your feedback about how we can be of even greater help to you and your people in the year ahead.

Greg Golub — As Sequoia CEO, Greg is responsible for constituting the vision and future of the company, leading the management team, and strengthening our client-centric culture as Sequoia scales. Greg also spends much of his time studying industry trends, serving on advisory boards and figuring out what changes in our industry will serve as opportunities for our clients.