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Prioritise

This section of the Toolkit focuses on action - acting on the results of your policy and perception research. It also provides information on communication, diversity and other issues, to help you develop and implement your changes.

Your Diagnostic Survey results have shown you the perceptions your employees have of reward in your organisation, and given a view of the priorities for action. Focus Groups have told you why employees feel this way, and Senior Team Brainstorming will give you the management view.

Now you need to decide to what extent the perceptions and priorities are true, given what you know about actual HR policies and practices within the organisation (obtained from your review of the History of Reward in your organisation, and the Current Reward Offering), you need to consider:

• Do any of the ratings or comments relate to elements of the reward package that you have no control over (e.g. centrally-negotiated wage and salary settlements or benefit entitlements, or legislative restrictions)?
  IF SO, you need to communicate that these aspects of reward are centrally-negotiated, but that you will undertake to discuss the feedback with the relevant government body;
• Do any of the ratings or comments relate to benefits you already offer (e.g. people wanting gym provision when you already provide a gym subsidy), OR was any of the feedback from the Focus Group factually incorrect (e.g. comments around pay or benefits policy, or progression pay)?
  IF SO, you may need to improve your Communication of the current package and benefits, perhaps through Total Remuneration Statements
• Were there any incidents during the Focus Group/Diagnostic Survey timeframe that may have affected the results (e.g. IT crash, negative publicity, OFSTED/Audit Commission report), OR has anything material changed within the organisation since you undertook the survey (e.g. pay settlement, redundancy announcement, new IT project initiated)?
  IF SO, you will need to take this into account in your Action Planning

You also need to review the results within the context of the overall:

• Organisation Strategy
• Human Resource Strategy
• Reward Strategy

Your priority areas may fall into one, two or three of the Engaged Performance® factors. We recommend addressing no more than three priorities for action initially - ideally, one should be a 'quick win'. We recommend a maximum of three priorities because a small number focuses effort and is more likely to produce results.

A model for deciding priorities

A good way of setting and agreeing priorities for action is to assign all the unique survey issues to one of the following quadrants, based on:

• An assessment of the degree to which the issue can be addressed (the potential for change/impact); and
• An assessment of relative importance at this time. 

Any items which fall in the right-hand side of the quadrant (i.e. Low Potential for Change) need to be communicated to employees, to avoid accusations of inaction on the results of the research. This communication should explain how and why these areas are beyond the control and/or influence of the organisation.

Items in the top-left of the quadrant (High Importance and High Potential for Change) need to be allocated to individual managers or members of the HR team for Action Planning. We suggest that your three Priority Actions are taken from this quadrant. For each Priority Action, you now need to:

1. Assess

You should know most of the answers to these questions from your research into organisational Policy.

• What are your current policies?
• Is Policy consistent with your Reward and Organisational strategy?
• What are your current practices?
• Is practice consistent with Policy?
• Who is eligible for this payment/benefit?
• How much does this payment/benefit cost?
• Is this cost-effective?
• Who do you compare your organisation with?
• What is the rationale for this comparator group?
• Is this the most appropriate comparator group?

2. Benchmark

Your research into employee Perception and Current Reward should provide the answers to these benchmarking questions:

• Do your employees value this payment/benefit/reward?
• How does your current policy compare with the external market?
• How does your current practice compare with the external market?

External benchmarking (pdf, 25Kb) of non-financial awards may help you gather the evidence you need to support recommendations for change. Look at what some of the best employers are doing both here and overseas – Best Places to Work.

3. Change

Change where analysis finds inconsistencies between strategy and policy, or policy and practice.

Consider change where your analysis finds inconsistencies between practice and employee need, or internal and market practice.

4. Communicate

• What is being changed/added/improved?
• Why the change is being made and the benefits for employees?
• When the change will take place?
• Who will be eligible?