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A Handbook of Employee Reward Management and Practice

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A Handbook of Employee Reward Management and Practice

Kogan Page,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Compensate workers fairly while aligning your reward management policies with your firm`s overall values. Not so simple.

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

This book is a very thorough introduction to contemporary reward management practice. Even though reward management simply means the way you compensate people, authors Michael Armstrong and Tina Stephens advise that your organization’s reward philosophy, strategy, policies and practices carry a message. They tell employees what your organization wants from them. As a rule, it seems, you get what you pay for. Thus, organizations need to pay for the things they want. Easily said, but done only with difficulty. A plethora of internal and external factors may cause a reward system to go off track and begin to compensate people for behaviors that do not advance the mission of the corporation and, in some cases, for behaviors that impede it. Although it is intended for practitioners, this also would be an excellent textbook for an introductory course on human resource management. The authors leave nothing to the imagination and take nothing for granted. getAbstract.com recommends their in-depth discussion of the major themes covered in the academic literature on rewards, particularly their informative case studies.

Summary

Money and Value

Reward management involves designing and implementing strategies, policies and practices to pay people and otherwise reward them. Ideally, rewards should be fair, egalitarian and consistent with your organization’s ideals and purpose. Thus, reward management pays people for their work, but it also sends a message about what the organization values. At the same time, properly managed rewards can encourage a culture of performance, motivate staff, recruit and keep the right people, and form a psychological contract to ensure a positive relationship between your employees and your organization. People feel they are being treated justly when they believe their rewards are commensurate with the value they contribute.

Contemporary reward theory rests upon two concepts:

  • Strategic pay - Policies and practices governing pay should flow naturally from the organization’s strategy, and must be a product of its culture, values and objectives.
  • New pay - Since reward policies can motivate organizational change, this philosophy holds that compensation should focus on results and should reward behavior that advances the organization...

About the Authors

Michael Armstrong, a fellow of the Institute of Management Consultancy, graduated from the London School of Economics. He is the author of more than a dozen business books including How to Be an Even Better Manager, Managing People, Performance Management and A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. Tina Stephens is a specialist in employee rewards and in management and leadership development. Both authors are affiliated with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Armstrong is a Companion and former Chief Examiner and Stephens is a Chartered Fellow.

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