Why rewards, benefits and recognition are crucial in the current workplace

The post-COVID-19 era of work has paved way for increased focus on wellbeing and flexibility. This, compounded with how it’s currently a candidate’s market, makes rewards, benefits, and recognition policies crucial.

Ross McDonald, Perkbox Australia’s country manager, discussed the significance these initiatives have in today’s workplace and why getting it right is so important.

HR Leader: “How important is it for companies to be offering rewards, benefits and recognition to their employees?”

Mr McDonald: “Being a market where, depending on the industry sector, it’s still very hard to employ the people you want, and there’s competition to keep the people you need. So that’s definitely one of the drivers we have that makes people interested in [rewards, benefits, and recognition].”

“The other one, actually, that is driving a lot of our usage from customers is also the distributed model of working, whether you call it hybrid or flex working or working from home or whatever it might be. What’s become increasingly clear to HR leaders and team leaders is they actually need a tool or a platform to do this sort of stuff.”

He continued: “So, if you think back in the day when everyone used to be in the office, not that long ago, but back in that day when you could walk around, you could see what work people were doing, you could literally pat them on the shoulder and say, thanks, that’s great. But now it’s much harder to do that.”

“One, you don’t get the visibility of that work being done. But two, as a leader, you miss that opportunity to actually talk to the people face to face and give that recognition. And so, we’ve got a lot of organisations that used to have that culture that really want to try to replicate it in an offline distributed way.”

HR Leader: “If employees aren’t utilising rewards and benefits, should you be looking at changing up your strategy and doing things that are going to be more appealing?”

Mr McDonald: “We do find [that] many organisations ... struggle with finding relevant benefits, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly worked in organisations where the standard gift was a pen.”

“Once you’ve got three pens, I don’t really need a fourth pen. What am I going to do with the fourth pen? And the sheen wears off, or it’s the bunch of flowers that are sent to someone who’s allergic to flowers, or the bottle of wine for the person who’s not a drinker. So, finding that relevance of benefit is really key. Relevance is an individual thing.”

HR Leader: “What are the major benefits that organisations are offering that employees are really taking advantage of right now?”

Mr McDonald: “Right now, I’d have to say that the cost of living is really prominent in people’s decision making. And so, we see a lot of interest in the things that are of everyday use. Grocery shopping, ways to make things cheaper on the everyday bill. There’s less focus on exciting trophies and bells and whistles, and much more around how the everyday organisations can help their people relieve that cost of living.”

He added: “The way for most organisations, they’re unable to give everybody a pay rise. But by being thoughtful with the benefits program, sometimes those organisations can make life a bit easier for their employees. And that’s certainly appreciated at the moment.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Ross McDonald, click below: