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Simplifying Compensation Processes for Remote Work

Employees, managers, and HR compensation teams all suffer when compensation processes are cumbersome and time consuming. Now, with many employees working from home, inefficiencies can be exacerbated. With research showing that already stressed workers are actually putting in longer hours and sending more emails when remote, there is no better time to move ahead with digital transformation of compensation processes, for greater efficiency as well as talent acquisition and retention.

The hidden opportunity of remote work

“Just like the coronavirus, in our future of work, remote work can present an opportunity for all of us to think about what it truly means to collaborate and how it can improve our organizations,” writes technology analyst Jun Wu in Forbes

Companies have enabled methods to support remote communication with various collaboration applications, but having automated and transparent systems can eliminate the need for much of the back-and-forth, whether in the office or remote. Compensation processes in many companies still involve many iterations of many spreadsheets, circulated around the world via email. This then results in many meetings to sort through disjointed HR and compensation data, and/or employees and managers having to reach out to HR service centers and comp teams for accurate data. A centralized compensation platform, accessible in the cloud from anywhere, can greatly alleviate these pains.

Simplifying work from home

If you can reduce the need for meetings and emails, you can make life more manageable for employees, while making their work time more productive. From the perspective of rewards processes, this can be done with a centralized, automated, transparent compensation platform. Having a single source of the truth when it comes to compensation information can reduce the need for meetings, emails, and calls to HR. This increased efficiency benefits the company and everyone involved and can be a big step towards work-life balance.

A centralized total rewards platform gives both managers and employees the ability to see accurate information regarding performance and compensation whenever they need it. This enables managers to review employee performance and propose appropriate salary increases or bonus rewards based on information such as the employee’s performance metrics, rewards history, company guidelines, and benchmarks. Employees can access their performance results, compensation plans, and total rewards statements, and see exactly how their compensation was calculated, eliminating the need for many calls to HR or managers to resolve compensation disputes. HR compensation administrators, meanwhile, can maintain the system and monitor processes from anywhere.

Using remote work to attract talent 

Interviewed by Human Resource Executive in June 2020 about remote work trends, CEO of WorldatWork Scott Cawood noted that interest in remote work, which has been rising in recent years, has now spiked due to the pandemic. “The difference now is that employers who may have been more reluctant before have looked at it and are seeing that it can work or at least work better than they thought it would,” says Cawood. “I think employers are recognizing that this is a trend they want to jump on if they can because it’s becoming the expectation [for some candidates].”

According to Ian Siegel, CEO and Cofounder of ZipRecruiter, remote work is already being used as a recruitment perk, and new tools are making remote workers more effective. Quoted in Forbes, Siegel said, “Millennials ... value salary, flexibility of work schedule and then location. There’s a dog fight for talent amongst employers. Already, employers are finding themselves offering that as a benefit, that flexibility of remote work, set your own work hours and location. … On top of that, we are in a renaissance of tools that make people effective at working remotely.”

Make your compensation processes efficient

Join the many companies who are adapting to today’s changing workplace by adopting beqom’s Total Compensation Solution to make their rewards processes more efficient, agile, and compliant. Download our free eGuide, Agile HR: How to Adapt Strategy, Motivate Performance, and Optimize Comp Spend through Periods of Change.

Download the Agile HR eGuide

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