Why instilling staff benefits could be the best way to retain talent

Employers may have little choice but to introduce staff benefits as a means to retain them long-term, according to a new report.

CIPD published The compensation revolution: incentives to motivate and retain future talent on 20 January, in partnership with Indeed. The report discussed the potential future of work and why employers may have to incentivise through benefits and rewards in order to keep staff around.

Outcome over output

Focusing on the end result rather than how you get there may be beneficial to attraction, retention, employee wellbeing, and overall productivity. CIPD mentioned the idea of a four-day working week, which has been trialled across the world with positive outcomes.

Companies in the UK have implemented this policy, citing an increase in wellbeing, retention, and productivity. In fact, during a four-day working week trial by 100 companies, 95 per cent said productivity remained the same or increased.

Karin Sanders, professor in human resource management and organisational psychology at the UNSW Business School, discussed this with HR Leader in September 2022: “If we were to work for four days, we could get more from workers and have less turnaround in people leaving workplaces due to burnout.”

Another approach could be shortening the work day. According to a BBC article: “Norway and Denmark have workweeks shorter than 40 hours, and are respectively the second- and seventh-most productive countries in the world.”

Celeste Headlee, author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, said in the BBC’s article: “Cognitively, we really only have a limited amount of focus time per day. When you are trying to force your brain to focus outside of that window, you’re going to see really diminishing returns, and end up in burnout. You’re going to end up making more errors, you will be less innovative, you’ll miss stuff. And that makes you less efficient.”

Employers may see increased attraction, engagement, wellbeing, and productivity through reduced work hours, whether that be in the form of a four-day week or shortened days.

Pay transparency

CIPD said transparency in wages could help create a fairer work environment for staff.

According to a report by Hays, salary transparency can improve trust, morale, and engagement. Staff are seen as equals, they can be motivated to reach higher positions, room for bias is lessened, and talent attraction can improve.

CIPD said in The compensation revolution: incentives to motivate and retain future talent that “one study found, across two decades, that posting the salaries of 100,000 academics online shrunk the gender pay gap by up to 50 per cent. This strongly implies that forcing organisations to show their workings over what they pay – or rather, who they pay what – sparks change.”

Stand out from the crowd

Planning for the future can help to anticipate any changes to work and help an employer promote themselves. Having employees’ wants and needs in mind when creating policy can help in attraction and retention.

CIPD said in The compensation revolution: incentives to motivate and retain future talent that the concept of a universal basic income (UBI) is an increasingly discussed topic. A UBI is a grant given to every citizen, which could have pros and cons.

As listed by Money Crashers, pros could include:

• Reduction in poverty
• Equality in pay
• Improved wellbeing
• Support for caregivers, students, domestic violence victims

However, there could be cons, such as:

• High costs
• Less inclination to work
• Reduced wages

Whether the UBI is a possibility in the future of work or not, organisations should be doing what they can to stay ahead of competition as policy like this would reduce the need for money as staff look towards benefits as their motivator.

To read the full CIPD The compensation revolution: incentives to motivate and retain future talent report, click here.