We author and publish a range of resources to keep you up to date with the latest developments in employment, education and skills, labour market and human resource policy and practice. All our pdf publications are free to access.
This paper examines how performance-related pay (PRP) has evolved in recent years. It uses real-life case studies to demonstrate how new techniques, closely linked to the organisation's unique characteristics and needs, can successfully act as a lever to improve individual performance and organisational effectiveness.
This paper examines how to handle reward systems through periods of business change and looks at what issues need to be tackled and how. Case studies from recently merged companies illustrate different approaches to handling reward strategy, pay and benefits.
There is evidence that sales force compensation has changed very little over the past few years, even though the role of many sales professionals has done so. The majority of UK companies use a combination of salary and commission for their sales staff because they assume that incentives linked to performance outcomes will stimulate effort. However, over-reliance on variable pay, or a poorly designed incentive scheme can create problems, especially if based on transaction volume but not customer satisfaction.
In the early 2000s the UK call centre industry employed around 850,000 workers in more than 6,000 centres. And although there were fears that 'offshoring' - that is, moving operations to lower-cost countries, such as India and South Africa - would lead to a fall in employment levels, the UK industry continued to expand. A report commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) found in 2003 that employment in the UK call centre industry had risen by 250 per cent since 1995, and was continuing to add tens of thousands of agent positions each year.
This paper advises employers and HR practitioners about approaches to managing 'knowledge workers'. The author defines knowledge workers, discusses their importance, and discusses how best to manage them, covering potential issues and problems such as performance management, reward systems and work organisation.
What are job families? Why are job families used in reward systems? What are the advantages of reward-linked job families? What do job families look like? This paper addresses these problems and discusses the practical issues and problems associated with job families.
Over time, there has been a general shift away from considerations of internal equity towards external equity. The value of a specific job role has become less about the particular skills that the employee brought to the job and more about its market price. This paper discusses how to establish the value of a job and looks at the issues of occupation, sector and location. The authors answer the question 'what drives interest in market-based pay?' and examine market-based pay in practice.
Local base pay or local allowance systems face common issues compared with using national renumeration structures but there are differences. We consider both the general cases for and against localised pay, and specific points of difference between the alternative routes. We conclude with a checklist of points for employers to consider before they proceed down the local pay route.
The report critically examines why organisations choose to introduce team, skill or competency based pay. It looks at the evidence of whether many organisations are operating these practices. It considers what benefits they have found, but equally what difficulties they have faced. This involves reviewing the mechanics of how organisations operate such devices and the sort of design decisions they have to make.
This paper outlines the nature of total reward and flexible benefits. It describes how common such schemes are in the UK and sets out the reasons for introducing these remuneration initiatives. Common problems and obstacles are reviewed and some practical questions are looked at.
