For many organizations, the focal review/pay adjustment period is winding down, and employees will soon be realizing these pay adjustments in their paychecks.
We wondered: what are companies in general doing in the area of pay communications, specifically:
- Information sharing with employees on base pay
- Communicating base pay increases
- Communicating pay ranges
- The use of Total Rewards Statements
- Frequency of communications
- Communications training
Fortunately, WorldatWork has conducted extensive research in this area; we summarized their findings and present them here as an attachment.
In terms of practical implications for a comp practitioner, consider the following:
For a comp/rewards leader, the research points to a few high‑leverage moves:
- Write or refresh a concise compensation philosophy and share it broadly.
- Build a simple narrative and visual for “how your pay is determined” that covers market data, ranges, performance, and progression.
- Design a manager training and toolkit focused on pay conversations, including FAQs and scenarios.
- Audit where and how employees currently get pay information and replace ad hoc, inconsistent communication with planned, multi-channel messages.
As for follow-ups to the focal process, at a minimum employees should receive advance notice of the pre-holdings increases they should expect to see and when. Many organizations have found an accompanying Total Rewards Statement to also be helpful in presenting the true value of the offerings the company makes to the employee, presented in summary fashion.
Bringing it All Together - Total Rewards Communications.pdf