At the last CIPD Reward SIG event, Duncan Brown presented some of the results from recent research he conducted at the CIPD. One of the key slides that caught my imagination was the time-value split between Reward Strategy and Reward Administration.
According to the research conducted by the CIPD ‘Supporting business strategy’ and ‘Developing reward strategy’ were ranked at 65% and 62% respectively in terms of ‘Most important’ to the roles of the respondents, but only 13% and 33% respectively in terms of ‘Time consuming’. On the other hand, ‘Reward Administration’ was ranked at a mere 18% in terms of ‘Most important’, but 63% in terms of ‘Most time consuming’.
As a Benefits Administration specialist I find this statistic quite amazing as this reflects a key problem I personally face when I go to market.
Since Benefits Administration is clearly not a priority for the Reward professional, it is difficult to get quality time to discuss the issues surrounding the topic and possible solutions. On the other hand however, Benefits Administration takes up a significant chunk of the Reward professionals time, so a little time spent up-front in trying to find a workable solution to the problem may enable him or her to focus more attention to the truly key issues of ‘Reward Strategy’ and alignment of Reward Strategy to business needs.
A second interesting observation, is that in recent research conducted by SBC Systems and our sister firm B2E Solutions, we discovered that of companies that offered more complex benefits, nearly 70% of FTSE 250 companies outsource all or part of their Benefits Administration. This should really be the perfect strategy for reducing the time spent on Benefits Administration down to the 18% allocation it deserves. But given that this is not the case, is this the time to explore a different option?
To learn more about how we help simplify and automate the administration of complex Benefit and Reward strategies, send an email to GirishMenezes@hotmail.com
Read a whitepaper on simplifying Benefits Administration here: http://employeereward.blogspot.com/2007/02/5-steps-to-benefits-administration.html
Read a copy of a study we completed on Benefits Administration trends and Best Practice here: http://employeereward.blogspot.com/2007/02/benefits-administration-in-united.html
