1 Understand the impact of reward approaches and packages.
1.1 Explain the principles of reward and its importance to organisational culture and performance management.
Principles of reward: the total reward approach, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards; fairness, consistency and transparency, promoting a culture of trust, balancing internal fairness with external market rates; integrating reward with business objectives; implementing reward policies and practices; role of reward in good work; related legislation and its application.
Importance to organisational culture and performance management: reward strategies that support the organisational culture and values; recognising and rewarding performance; stimulating performance by rewarding for value created; engaging employees to drive performance.
1.2 Assess the contribution of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to improving employee contribution and sustained organisational performance.
Measurement, equity, expectancy, teamworking, intrinsic orientation, senior management support, impact on motivation and results; linking behaviours and achievement measures directly to rewards.
2 Understand the importance of different components of reward.
2.1 Explain differences between types of grade and pay structures.
Formal and informal structures; types of formal structures such as multi-graded structure, broad-graded, broad-banded, job families; informal structures such as spot rates and individual job grades.
2.2 Explain how contingent rewards can impact individual, team and organisational performance.
Types of contingent pay such as performance-related pay, competency-related pay, contribution-related pay, skill-based pay, service/tenure related pay. Impact on individual, team and organisational performance.
2.3 Explain the merits of different types of benefits offered by organisations.
Types of benefits offered and merits of each: types of benefits such as performance-related pay; profit-sharing; gainsharing; share ownership; payment by results; bonus schemes; commission; pensions; healthcare; insurance cover; sick pay; enhanced redundancy pay; career counselling; company loans; season ticket loans; company cars; concierge services; fees to professional bodies; enhanced maternity; paternity and adoption leave and pay; childcare; sports and social facilities, etc; flexible benefits; impact of reward costs and ability of organisation to resource these costs; development of budgets and resource recommendations. Individual differences in what is important in their reward; merits of each type of benefit: general merits include increased employee engagement, motivation and commitment to the organisation, reduced churn, helps to attract employees to the organisation.
2.4 Explain the merits of different types of recognition schemes offered by organisations.
Differences between formal and informal recognition; day-to-day recognition; public recognition; cash awards; value of cash awards; non-cash awards such as gifts, vouchers, tickets.
3 Understand how to develop insight from benchmarking data to inform reward approaches.
3.1 Assess the business context of the reward environment.
Context of the reward environment: levels of business activity and confidence; economic outlook; industrial trends and sector profiles including common reward packages – private, public and voluntary; equality legislation; regional differences in pay; occupational classification, labour force trends, pay reviews and pay trends; international comparisons, legal frameworks and cultural drivers.
Internal and external factors: for example labour market, human capital, efficiency wage and agency; the psychological contract, expectancy and equity; collective bargaining and pay determination; development of pay determination; the increasing regulation of pay; competitiveness; external and internal equity.
3.2 Evaluate the most appropriate ways in which benchmarking data can be gathered and measured to develop insight.
Sources of intelligence; evaluation, reliability and measurement of data; earnings, working hours, inflation, recruitment and vacancies; unemployment, pay settlements, bargaining and industrial disputes; reward and salary surveys, payroll data; government surveys, statistics and requirements.
3.3 Explain approaches to job evaluation.
Differences between formal and informal approaches; differences between analytical and non-analytical job evaluation; point factors; job matching; levelling; use in equal pay defences.
3.4 Explain the legislative requirements that impact reward practice.
Equal pay and reward; minimum pay; itemised pay statements; income tax; reporting requirements such as gender pay gap, CEO pay ratios, annual reports.
