What initiatives or projects are you working on or accountable for?  

• Benefits and Compensation
• Recognition programs
• Wellbeing initiatives
• Career framework and job architecture
  

“Redesigning our Canadian and US benefits plans.”

“Redoing our entire compensation philosophy.”

“Redesigns of multiple incentive plans.”

“Refreshing our recognition program.”

“Adding recognition offerings and recognition programs.”

“A network of wellbeing champions.”

“Developing a 2025 wellbeing strategy.”

“A career framework journey.”

“Redoing the job titles in a career architecture project.”

“Total Rewards statements.”

“Instead of doing separate merit, stock, and bonus cycles, we're going to combine them all into one review cycle, effective next year.”

“A project that’s been ongoing for quite some time that seeks to change our culture and involves leadership assessments and succession planning so we can make better decisions.”

“All of our communications, so whether it’s our website, internal SharePoint, or Exchange pages, I work with our internal comms and brand team to make sure we keep the corporate message and voice tagged to whatever we’re doing.”

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How will O.C. Tanner offerings help you meet your goals?

• Enhancing recognition culture
• Tailoring to diverse business needs
• Driving cultural transformation
• Improving employee engagement and wellness
• Streamlining and centralizing recognition programs
  

“Creating a culture where peers can thank and recognize one another for a job well done.”

“I’m excited about ensuring our recognition is appropriate and comes to life to the greatest extent it can in our very diverse businesses.”

“We have an opportunity to educate our leaders around the value of recognition and how it can help us drive the cultural transformation we want to achieve. We also need to reinforce our values and our culture shift through our Victories platform that we’re not doing now.”

“We look forward to doing more with the symbolic pieces in our service program.”

“Seeing opportunities and how a culture of wellness is linked to recognition.”

“Moving almost every form of recognition onto O.C Tanner will give us a single platform to view and manage recognition.”

“Implementing a global recognition program has been something on our executives’ minds.”

“Launching the Culture Cloud will help us integrate recognition more into our day-to-day, make it more top of mind, more visible, and help us create a better experience for our employees.”

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What are the primary use cases for O.C. Tanner offerings, based on your roles and goals?

• Recognition for achievements
• Global and scalable solutions
• Employee engagement and retention
• Improving leadership insights
• Streamlining recognition programs
  

“It’s mainly to ensure our employees are feeling recognized on a daily basis.”

“To recognize people and teams when they’re successful in delivering business outcomes.”

“We use the tool to encourage associates and managers to recognize one another.”

“They work well globally—across 80 countries and 25,000 people.”

“Making people feel appreciated, and having an award or a monetary piece always wins over a few hearts.”

“We need things to retain people, and daily recognition and anniversaries are a big piece of that.”

“We’re piloting some really cool reporting to help leaders see the recognition happening on their teams better.”

“I think the in-the-moment recognition experience is great, but when it comes to it being a cultural tool in terms of leaders having insights and gleaning a picture of what’s going on, I know work is underway to improve that.”

“Ensuring leaders understand the importance of recognition and how it drives value.”

“We have the four categories: general recognition, initiatives, cash recognition, and service anniversaries.”

“We use your technology to gather nominations and then create outputs we can share with executive leadership to calibrate.”

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Are there any features you find particularly useful?

• User interface/ease of use
• Recognition and reward redemption
• Digital engagement and accessibility
• Reporting and analytics
• Inclusivity and comprehensiveness
  

“The user interface is good. From our own branding standpoint, it’s been nice to be able to run specific campaigns easily.”

“Once you’re in the tool, it’s easy to send recognition.”

“I do think it’s easy for people to redeem rewards. The redemption process is really good.”

“Having an app is helpful because a lot of our employees are not behind a computer.”

“The Outlook add-in feature is very useful where you can send recognition directly from Outlook.”

“The reporting and analytics are helpful from a business perspective.”

“Anybody—regardless if you’re an employee, a contractor, or an intern—can get recognized.”

“I like the eCards. They go a long way.”

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Are there specific features or functionality you wish were part of O.C. Tanner offerings?

• Greater administrative efficiency
• UX and UI enhancements
• Recognition integration
• Deeper reporting
• Yearbook and milestone improvements
• Point system and currency clarity
• Recognition visibility
• Product redemption options
• Integration with other tools
• Handwritten and tangible recognition
  

“Our team spends an awful lot of time reconciling reports, and it’s very, very manual. If more of that could happen behind the scenes and more of that be automated, it would help.”

“Filtering on the Wall of Fame.”

“I wish there was a way to give recognition in Gmail or Slack. And capture the recognition done there.”

“There’s more on the reporting and metrics side of it that I would want to see.”

“A point deposit that incorporates initiative service awards group deposits. It’s not really broken out, it’s all one together. It'd be great if you could actually drill down.”

“When I look at the reporting, it will break it up by business group. I’d like it either divided out even further down by division and/or something that all that would at least normalize it by head count.”

“If there was a way to print the Yearbook from the digital piece. We’ve gone away from the printed piece that gets delivered to folks’ homes. And folks have asked us, ‘Is there a way I can just download this and print it in a PDF version, whether it’s a one-pager or whatnot?’”

“Why do we use points and not dollars? You can give 100 points. But why not just give $20?”

“It can be confusing for our employees who don’t understand the point structure.”

“It’s really hard to know why you’re getting recognized. There’s no link.”

“Email notifications to managers when comments are available would be helpful.”

“Expand the scope of available products to be redeemed for points.”

“Having it limited can be good for rare occasions, but more options would be helpful.”

“Any type of integrations with ServiceNow or SuccessFactors on improving processing.”

“Having handwritten cards as an option would be nice. It’s sentimental, it’s meaningful.”

What are your aspirations for personal success and growth? (overall and specific to employee recognition)

• Leadership and team growth
• Strategic planning
• Greater influence
• Continuous learning and development
• Work-life balance and personal fulfillment
  

“Top of mind is really growing my team, growing my management structure underneath me.”

“I aspire to lead an HR organization one day, working towards experience, education, well-rounded training.”

“Being a lot more strategic in the way that we think about our projects and how they connect to each other.”

“A huge goal for me is to influence cultural change.”

“I just want to keep learning and growing. As long as I’m learning new things, growing, developing, I’m happy.”

“I’m more interested in just broader knowledge and growth. Maybe more lateral than up.”

“Personally, I want to balance everything with being a mom.”

“I enjoy traveling, so that’s kind of where my area of focus is outside of work.”

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What aspirations do you have for your organization? (overall and specific to employee recognition)

• Employee engagement and participation
• Leader adoption
• Cultural transformation
• Operational excellence and strategic alignment
• Recognition as a cultural pillar
• Holistic wellbeing and recognition integration
  

“I’d like to see 90% of our people actively using our recognition and using it appropriately.”

“My biggest aspiration is getting more participation from managers and understanding the importance.”

“The aspirations would be to get executives and leaders more involved in recognition. It’s a tough hurdle. And then just more consistency, so more folks are recognized more regularly.”

“Getting our leaders bought into the power of recognition and what it can do for them in that whole process.”

“I want us to sustain the momentum we’ve created around the street view of our company over the last several quarters, where there’s tons of positive momentum. I believe cultural differentiators like recognition and wellbeing play a big part in that story.”

“Have programs in place or change-management structures in place that can maintain or support the growth.”

“To create reliable and sustainable operations.”

“Continue to embed recognition into the culture. I want it to be indispensable.”

“To create a program that really sets us apart and helps us become an employer of choice.”

“Bringing it all together under one concept. It’s really important for me to appreciate people.”

What challenges do you face in your role?

• Talent acquisition and retention
• Resource constraints
• Expense management
• Compliance and legislative changes
• Change management and adaptability
  

“Always competition for talent, for hot skills, whether it’s a good market or a slow market.”

“Making sure that we deliver best in class for our employees and are able to attract and retain talent.”

“Resourcing probably is the number one.”

“We could do a lot more and the company would welcome it, we just have limited resources sometimes.”

“How do I make sure that we keep our programs competitive and meaningful in an expense constrained environment?”

“Expense management is something that we’ve been tasked to address.”

“Breaking down the silos. Getting folks talking to each other again, knowing what everyone’s working on, and not creating projects and initiatives that are disconnected from each other.”

“Increasing compliance on both the benefits and the compensation side.”

“A lot of legislative changes that are coming down, a variety of health and welfare and compensation matters.”

“Any change can be difficult at our company, even when it’s positive.”

“Being able to bob and weave through all of the industry changes that are on their way.”

“The evolution of ESG and ESG disclosure and how that comes into play.”

“I’m still figuring out what I should be doing with AI. I don’t want to be left behind.”

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and we really need to leverage our vendor relationships, our tools, and our partners so we can deliver.”

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Will O.C. Tanner offerings help you tackle some of those challenges? If so, how?

• Employee recognition and engagement
• Strategic support and consultation
• Resource allocation and management
• Budget and expense management
• Change management and communication
  

“Day-to-day recognition and people feeling valued and respected for the work that they do goes a long way in keeping people engaged.”

“Yes, they help us keep rewards and recognition top of mind for employees.”

“With the right partnership from O.C. Tanner around developing a strategic roadmap in this area and how we make a difference to our culture, it off-loads my team tremendously.”

“I believe so. You guys also offer more of that consultative side that I find super helpful, whereas I have other vendors that are just a tool and that’s it.”

“Giving recognition is a great support structure to help us grow. It’s a great vehicle to reward performance throughout the year, unlike merit and bonus.”

“The reporting is really solid. I think we’re able to see where we stand versus budget.”

“Yes, we’ll turn on your system budget tool in ‘25 to be a little more rigorous on how many points we’re giving out.”

“We might want to have more robust organizational change-management factors involved, rather than just email.”

“Not directly, I think it’ll help in terms of maintaining positive employee sentiment, and so I think indirectly it’s one of the things, it’s part of the overall experience we want to have, but it’s a part of many things, I’d say.”

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What types of risks do you face in your role? (e.g., political, process, financial targets)

• Financial
• Data security and technology
• Compliance/legal
• Cultural
• Process
• Strategic
  

“Financial targets that impact the funding of our different incentive plans and therefore our competitiveness. The competition to attract, keep, and motivate the people we need is fierce.”

“We have to try and ensure that we stay within our annual budget.”

“Data security risks, like significant data breaches. Those are a quick way to end business.”

“We have a lot of risk around our technology as well as cybersecurity.”

“AI is a massive opportunity with massive risk right now. And the other side of that coin is if you don’t move fast enough, you’ll probably get left behind.”

“The largest risk is going to be compliance-related—just following all the laws for all the different types of comp and benefit programs we have.”

“Employee morale and culture within the organization.”

“Ensuring that employee sentiment is positive, that our associates are happy. There’s a big risk that they could unionize on us.”

“Procedural risks. There’s so much process improvement we need to do across all areas.”

“Risk around our strategies not actually doing what we think they’ll do.”

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What problems get in the way of your operational and functional goals?

• Resource constraints
• Technological challenges
• Compliance and regulatory issues
• Competing priorities
• Manager mindset
  

“Across the board, resourcing. We don’t have enough people for all the work that needs to be done.”

“There’s a tremendous amount of burnout and I think we’re trying to come back from that.”

“Return to office is still a hurdle to a certain extent.”

“Technological difficulties, specifically security provisions that need to be in place to deal with confidential information.”

“The reporting could certainly be cleaned up. For our quarterly reports, we can’t just use the data from O.C. Tanner. We have to manipulate it.”

“Increasing compliance that is inconsistent from state to state and country to country. Pay equity disclosure rules, for example, vary from place to place and are always changing.”

“Competing priorities—when we try and work on one thing and get pulled off for something else.”

“Ad hoc requests are coming at us too frequently, we’re unable to be proactive instead of reactive.”

“Mindsets, manager mindsets, not maybe realizing the importance of recognition, the value of it. So they tighten the purse strings and don’t give as much recognition as they probably should, which obviously impacts the employee experience.”

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What problems get in the way of your personal and performance goals?

• Resource constraints
• Time management and prioritization
• Work-life balance
• Hybrid work/maintaining connections
  

“Resources again, but also just the company not being completely on board with change.”

“The biggest issue I have right now is I’m a team of one on organizational development who’s also managing compensation benefits.”

“Having enough time in the day. Probably prioritization, prioritization and planning.”

“Work-life balance is a challenge for me. I have a life outside of work.”

“I have to really divide and conquer my energy and effort and be 100 percent on when I’m at home with my family.”

“It’s a little more difficult to stay connected with people.”

“Going in once or twice a week, we just don’t have the same level of connection with folks.”

What obstacles to business goals does your organization face?

• Traditional leaders and culture
• Regulatory and legislative obstacles
• Operational efficiency vs. pace
• External influences and competition
• Internal processes and systems
  

“To be successful, we need to change our culture and our leadership. Not only who we bring in, but who do we exit and who has skill deficiencies that need a development plan to make them better leaders, so those under them are really thriving and producing the way they need to.”

“The clash of old culture and new culture that happen when you grow fast.”

“The unknowns of environmental change and the regulations that could come with it.”

“It’s regulatory obstacles, legislative obstacles. Competition with our peers in this industry as well.”

“They’re probably the same ones I mentioned for operational problems, mostly compliance and competition.”

“It’s not being able to complete things quickly enough and then shifting before things are finished.”

“Keeping up with our exponential growth entails having more rules, procedures, policies, operations in place.”

“Invoicing issues. It’s more of an internal issue. As well as the manager engagement.”

How do you tie your role and process to larger company goals or initiatives?

• Alignment with company strategy
• Impact on financial viability
• Employee recognition and engagement
• Integration with recruitment and talent management
• Structured goal setting and monitoring
  

“We go through a process every year based on the enterprise strategy that goes through the entire organization.”

“We use OKRs, TR objectives, and key results. And we cascade those objectives and key results.”

“We have five pillars that are relatively generic, and each LOB will build their strategies off of those and it just gets more and more specific as it rolls downhill.”

“What we deliver in Total Rewards has a direct impact on the bottom line of our organization.”

“Outside of paying people’s basic salaries, we’re the largest overhead expense that we manage for the company from an asset perspective. So our work is incredibly important to profitability.”

“It ties into our recruitment efforts and wanting people to see who we are as a company. Making sure we’re attracting the talent we need to be successful with all our different goals.”

“We start with three or four major categories, and within those, we might have three or four metrics or deliverables and we update the company on our progress every month.”

“I think some of it will come through in our annual employee satisfaction survey, and how that comes back.”

What is your job role responsible for?

• Compensation and benefits management—overseeing all aspects of employee compensation, benefits, and retirement plans.
• Performance management—setting goals, assessing performance, and managing the overall performance of the organization.
• Wellness programs—curating resources to support employees’ wellness goals, including physical, mental, and financial health.
• Employee recognition—managing recognition programs to acknowledge and reward employees’ contributions.
• Organizational development—managing learning programs, succession planning, and other large-scale initiatives.

“I’m the director over Total Rewards and organizational development, so I’m responsible for compensation and benefits and then all the organizational learning programs, as well as performance management, succession planning, etcetera.”

“Executive compensation, governance, employee comp, employee benefits and pension and savings plans. So everything in Total Rewards, and that’s on a global basis.”

“The whole goal setting process that happens at the beginning of the year, and then the assessment of performance throughout and at the end of the year. So all of the pieces that go into making sure that happens. And last and certainly not least, is employee recognition.”

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How is your work measured?

• Goal setting (performance against predefined goals)
• Employee engagement
• Quantitative and qualitative measures
• Project completion

“Each year we set goals and report on them at the end of the year.”

“Biggest ones would probably be employee engagement or health.”

“Employee retention, employee development, and promotions.”

“Quantitatively, we’re measured on employee satisfaction and recognition ROI as it relates to retention, as well as delivering on various benefits and programs on time and within budget.”

“How we compare to other companies within our market and industry. How well our employees engage and utilize the benefits, and the general consensus and appreciation of the rewards.”

“My boss’s and other folk’s assessment of did we achieve what we set out to.”

“It’s measured basically by the goals that are completed each year.”

“Who knows? It’s just, ‘Jen, go fix it,’ and I fix things.”

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Does your role produce standard deliverables, and if so, what are they?

• Compensation and benefits (managing and executing plans)
• Goal setting and performance management
• Communication strategies
• Reporting

“The largest deliverable of the year is compensation planning. So ensuring that merit and bonus are executed successfully.”

“We do benefits design and re-enrollment every year. We also produce pension statements every year.”

“Executing annual cycles—enrollment, merit, performance management, succession planning—as well as bonus payouts and long-term incentive grants.”

“Our communication plans.”

“We do a monthly reporting suite that we send out to leadership, so that’s one of our deliverables.”

“All of the paying benefits for the company along with HR strategy, organizational design, talent development.”

“And, of course, we’re always looking at the various programs and processes to see where enhancements are needed, whether it’s because the strategy has evolved, the market has evolved, or whatever it is.”

“We do a monthly reporting suite that we send out to leadership. And then there’s also financials, we need to report on how we’re doing with the budget.”

What type(s) of content do you prefer as you learn to use a new solution?

• None—prefer intuitive design
• Visual and interactive learning
• Hands-on and practical experiences
• Concise, accessible resources
• Webinars and resource centers
  

“With a new solution, I hope it’s designed intuitively enough that I don’t need any content.”

“I’d like to know that with a mouse and maybe a call, I can figure out how to use the new thing.”

“I like videos, especially if they’re short and to the point.”

“Face-to-face or interactive, but very concise, no dense written materials.”

“Visuals that organize the information well or explain the concept, that’s best for me.”

“I need to see things in a graphic format to be able to process it. I also need things to be bucketed.”

“I particularly like hands on. I like to go in and kind of tinker depending on what it is.”

“Most people learn best and understand something when they actually do it.”

“User guides are helpful.”

“I prefer process documents to videos because I can quickly scroll through a page with screenshots if I need a refresher on something.”

“Having a webinar available, live or recorded. But then also informative dashboards or a resource center that’s user friendly enough you can click around and learn things. I don’t think a 50-page FAQ is the way to go.”

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What type(s) of content do you prefer as you learn how to optimize a solution you already have?

• Peer-to-peer
• Interactive learning
• Visual and concise content
• Data-driven insights
• Examples and benchmarking
• One-on-one personalized support
  

“For tips and tricks, peer-to-peer learning from people you work with every day.”

“Personal interactions and conversations, being able to ask questions and brainstorm.”

“Short snippets of videos—less than five minutes per topic. I’m not too picky if I can get to what I need without waiting and reading or scrolling through content that's not relevant.”

“Anything visual, so video, short clips, or screenshots. And just having a sandbox environment for people to get their hands on it and play around with it is always helpful.”

“I’d want to see who’s using what in our organization, graphically. Then I can decide what needs to happen.”

“Examples of ways to optimize it, how other companies are doing it.”

“Benchmarking through other company demonstrations.”

“It’s discussions with someone that understands our business framework. It’s a partnership.”

“One-on-one, in-person meetings with the team.”

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How do you prefer to learn about the ways peers are using a solution?

• Comparative and benchmark analysis
• Success stories
• Real-life examples
  

“Reference calls with other clients. It’s always interesting to talk to them.”

“Benchmark analysis is really helpful. Looking at the big picture.”

“Crisp, comparative, here’s you, here’s them, and here’s the difference.”

“Success stories and real-life examples including the challenges other companies have faced.”

Where do you start your search for information to learn more about your industry or professional role?

• Consulting firms
• Professional networks
• Business publications
• Industry conferences and organizations
• Google and general web searches
• Internal resources including AI tools
  

“We regularly engage with consulting firms like McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group or Deloitte.”

“I typically start with a trusted partner or advisor.”

“We have a Gartner license. So I’ll usually use their library and other resources.”

“My network. Individuals I know that have the same roles at other companies.”

“LinkedIn is actually a great source of information.”

“I try to stay up to date on what’s happening in my industry through Harvard Business Review or Inc or Fortune.”

“A lot of my information comes from Influence Greatness and the Executive Council.”

“The global culture report is big for us.”

“Google. That’s the place I start.”

“Just a lot of Google. Googling around and seeing white papers and trying to find white papers and latest reports.”

“I’m a WorldatWork member, so I do tend to go there a lot for Total Rewards items and insight.”

“We belong to two compensation organizations, membership organization that are oil and gas only.”

“There’s an AI assisted tool we developed internally that’s within our firewalls. You could think of it like a ChatGPT-4, except our data doesn’t leave the virtual walls of our organization.”

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What triggers a response to a marketing message? (e.g., relevance to my role, an initiative I’m working on, or a problem I’m facing)

• Relevance to current role or issues
• Personalization from a known source
• A clear, specific call to action
• Unique, attention-grabbing content
• Proven value
  

“Something that’s relevant to what’s happening in my world at a particular time. Or something new that you don’t want to miss the boat on. So maybe a little bit of fear factor.”

“If I had a certain problem and it seemed to address that, I might pause before deleting it.”

“I’m more likely to bite if it’s personally sent from a contact that I know, or if it’s from a reputable, familiar source.”

“There has to be a very specific call to action, if that makes sense.”

“Something that’s unique and breaks through.”

“Just something that sets things apart because there’s just so much noise out there.”

“If the message mirrors my values, my sentiments, my end goal, that makes it enticing.”

“I don't respond to emails ever.”

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What type(s) of digital interactions do you expect between your organization and O.C. Tanner?

• Emails
• Video conferencing
• Data reporting and interpretation
• Employee-facing digital platforms
• Chat services for timely support
  

“Conference calls as needed.”

“Definitely email would make sense. And meetings like the one we’re doing now.”

“Probably Teams calls mainly. I feel like we need more interaction, we need more regular touch points.”

“I would expect a report on things like a redemption campaign we did recently. How did it go? What were the findings? More than just the data, but also an interpretation of it.”

“The recognition platform is our digital interaction. But we also have weekly data feeds to you and then we get monthly data from you that goes into our payroll system.”

“Obviously the mobile app. I guess that would be a digital interaction between us.”

“The chat service you have for employees.”

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What type(s) of in-person interactions do you expect?

• Occasional in-person meetings
• Working sessions
• Annual reviews and strategic discussions
• Conferences and industry events
  

“I think seeing you guys a couple times a year is probably a good thing.”

“When your people come to our offices, and we have an in-person meeting. It would go a long way if we did that more.”

“If it’s like an all-day working session, you need to be in the room to really collaborate.”

“Strategy discussions might have more value in person.”

“It’s nice to be together, especially when we’re going over annual performance.”

“Yearly annual business reviews with our main customer success teams are better face-to-face.”

“Yearly conferences, like Influence Greatness, are very helpful from an industry perspective.”

“All I can say is you meet every key aspect for in-person.”

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What type(s) of one-to-many interactions (e.g. webinars, seminars, conferences) are most helpful to optimize the use of O.C. Tanner offerings?

• Conferences
• Webinars
• Client advisory council
• Group meetings
• Recognition and training seminars
• Diverse communication needs
  

“Influence Greatness is truly one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended in my career.”

“I love IG. I go every year I can. And I really find the content there inspiring.”

“Webinars are helpful, especially because you can watch them whenever.”

“Training webinars on the product itself.”

“I do appreciate a webinar every now and then. But I find them less and less helpful as things go on.”

“We’re fortunate to be on your client council. I find those meetings extremely impactful.”

“I haven’t seen training webinars on the product itself. If there’s a library, I’d be open to that. I’d also like any kind of seminar for our people that explains the basics, like how to recognize, why to recognize, ‘cause in reality that doesn’t happen as much as it should.”

“Oh, definitely. And we’ll take everything because we need to work through a bunch of different platforms to ensure our communication to associates reaches everyone.”

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Have you shared stories of professional success? If so, how? (word of mouth, posting a review, being part of a case study, etc.)

• Conferences
• Internal team communication and mentoring
• Word of mouth/social media
• Case studies and reviews
  

“For the last couple years, we’ve been involved at IG.”

“I was a presenter last year at the Influence Greatness and told our story.”

“I share stories of success quite a bit with my team.”

“It’s important for me to constantly be communicating what our goals are.”

“Shared stuff, yes. Like presentations, mentoring.”

“Word of mouth and potentially posting an update on social media.”

“In some organizations like SVEF, we showcase and call out the vendors we work for.”

“All the above: Word of mouth, posting a review, being part of a case study.”

“I don’t really do any of those things.”

What is the role of Total Rewards?

• A comprehensive view of compensation, benefits, etc.
• Strategic alignment
• Employee retention and recognition
• Support for a positive employee experience
  

“The role of Total Rewards is to provide a holistic view of compensation packages to associates.”

“It’s all-encompassing benefits and compensation with the partnership of several others. And it’s about communicating as well as providing those benefits that keep folks around.”

“To ensure employees are compensated in a way that’s strategically aligned so that the things that we’re rewarding them for are aligned with where we’re going as an organization.”

“It’s how we attract, retain, and motivate the people we need to execute against our strategy.”

“They help us make sure that across the board we’re matched up to the market or a little bit above it.”

“Creating an employee experience that helps us become or contributes to us being the best place to work.”

“To demonstrate to employees that their contributions are valued, respected, and recognized.”

What does Total Rewards encompass?

• Compensation (salary and incentives)
• Benefits (insurance, savings, pensions, wellbeing, etc.)
• Learning and development opportunities
• Employee recognition
• Communication
• Compensation governance and compliance
  

“Currently, it encompasses compensation and benefits globally within the company.”

“It’s not just your base salary and your benefits. It’s a much larger scope.”

“Partnerships with a number of other organizations or groups within the company.”

“Typically, it’s our stock administration, our learning and development team, our inclusion and diversity team, our talent team.”

“So compensation, benefits, wellbeing, savings plans, pensions, and a lot more. And it can include recognition and performance management, but sometimes those fall in other areas.”

“At [company], it’s only the compensation and benefits, that’s how it’s defined here. We split all other areas under other groups, not under Total Rewards.”

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What is the state of Total Rewards? Where do you see it heading?

• Digital, virtual, and AI capabilities grow
• Greater specialization within HR
• A continuing key to successfully compete
• Compensation and benefits evolve
  

“Everything’s gone digital. We used to do new employee orientations in person; now it’s all digital. Benefits books are all online. And AI will soon impact compensation, among everything else.”

“All the enrollment is online. We’ve gotten away from a lot of the paper versions of things. And in some cases, we’ve even gotten away from in-person things.”

“More money will come back to companies through increased productivity, and more money will flow out for product development and really hot skills. It’ll be much harder to recruit data scientists, data engineers, AI model trainers. Anything in that field is already intense, but over the next two years, it’ll be a battle, and rewards will be really key.”

“Total Rewards has become its own category to ensure you have the right expertise in payroll and pension and benefits. Your day-to-day employee engagement and hiring or termination of employees are very separate now.”

“It’s changed the way companies have to compete with each other.”

“Benchmarking pay is so common that Total Rewards is the best way for companies to set themselves apart in the fight for talent.”

“We’re trying to think about how we might increase the base pay component and still keep a competitive benefits package.”

“Total Rewards is a more strategic driver in terms of being an effective way to communicate to employees what’s important.”

“It’s really a linchpin for demonstrating what’s valuable to the organization and what we want the culture to be.”

“AI will increase the degree of customization and help us determine where it makes sense to have programs that differ by employee population or by business versus those that should be consistent across the organization. But I think it’ll remain a critically important piece of the overall employee offering.”

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What capabilities or offerings should a good Total Rewards group have?

• Flexible benefit plans
• Deeper wellness programs
• Financial planning and resources
• Competitive alignment with market
• Diverse talent acquisition
  

“Flexible plans. Being able to scale up or down certain categories of benefits that meet the needs of different families.”

“Having a more flexible pension plan that’s portable.”

“Wellness programs to encourage employees’ mental and physical wellbeing.”

“A robust EAP and counselor program.”

“Various apps and avenues for folks to get help, if needed. Ours include a third-party financial vendor to check in with how our retirement fund is doing. They also do financial planning and whatnot.”

“The ability to align to the market and keep up with any changes.”

“Offerings need to be competitive to the market.”

“It’s good to be able to attract entry-level people, mid-level managers, and senior executives to get different perspectives based on years of experience with other companies.”

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How can O.C. Tanner better serve Total Rewards clients?

• Focus on core offerings
• Enhance recognition programs
• Integrate wellness programs
• Incorporate client feedback
• Continue insights and education
  

“Perfect the business you start with. Don’t dabble. Don’t be Elon Musk and spread yourself too thin. Owning your business earns our trust.”

“I’d like to see what more we can do in the recognition space. Maybe it’s just making that offering a little more seamless.”

“There are probably some things we can combine, like recognition and wellness, and get some efficiency with the platforms.”

“Right now, we use OC Tanner for our service awards, but at least for me, I'd like to see what more we can do. And then I'm always looking for our vendors to provide insight and recommendations and such.”