Early in the New Year is a great time to consider annual pay reviews for your employees.
A pay review is an assessment of your employee’s work and performance to determine whether or not their salary should be adjusted. You may also need to consider market data and individual/ business objectives.
There is no legal obligation as an employer to conduct an annual salary review however, most employers choose to offer it as part of a rewards programme.
A pay review motivates employees and helps them feel valued and apprieciated for their hard work and dedication to your business. In return, this increases productivity and improves employee retention. Implementing annual pay reviews can also help to ensure fairness and transparency.
If you would like more information on annual pay reviews, please contact [email protected]
There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to designing a health and wellbeing strategy however, there are various different areas companies can explore to utilize employee wellbeing and the support the company is offering.
Promoting good physical health to employees, for example providing health checks, wellbeing benefits, health insurance protection, managing disability and occupational health support. Ensuring physical safety at work is a priority, this can be done with safe working practices, safe equipment, personal safety training. Finally supporting employees’ mental health by being aware of stress management, providing risk assessments, conflict resolution training, training line managers to have difficult conversations, managing mental ill health and offering an employee assistance program.
Providing a suitable working environment e.g. ergonomically designed working areas and an open and inclusive culture. Inspiring good line management by providing effective people management policies, training for line managers, sickness absence management. In addition to maintaining pertinent job design/roles, job quality, workload, working hours, job satisfaction and work-life balance.
By having values-based leadership, clear mission and objectives and introducing a health and wellbeing strategy you can underpin your company’s approach to employee wellbeing. Another way is proving high ethical standards by having a dignity at work policy and investing in corporate social responsibility. Lastly, being aware of and promoting inclusion and diversity by valuing difference, recognising cultural engagement and providing training for employees and managers.
Providing a platform for the employee voice and encouraging communication, consultation, genuine dialogue and lastly involving employees in decision making where possible.
Putting a focus on career development with mentoring, coaching, performance management, performance development plans, skills utilization and succession planning for employees.
Providing fair pay and benefit policies i.e. pay rates above the statutory National Minimum/Living Wage, presenting a flexible benefits scheme and offering employee financial support via an employee assistance program offering debt counselling or signposting to external sources of free advice (for example Citizens Advice).
Engaged employees are more productive and “present” in the workplace. Engaged employees will go that extra mile for your business, will stay with the company and can act as your best advert! Here are some tips for increasing employee engagement.
A great starting point for improving engagement, is to measure it in your workplace! There are a few ways to do this, including focus groups and one to one meetings, but a great tool is an engagement survey. These can be completed anonymously or completed with a manager in person. Engagement surveys give you the data you need to find out what you are getting right, and what you need to work on. That data can be used as the basis for measuring improvement in the future.
There is little point in gathering all this information, if you aren’t prepared to actively take on board suggestions from your team or recognise when there are problems that need fixing. Once you have the results, meet with your management team and plan what you can do to boost engagement.
When an organisation’s purpose and vision is not only clearly defined but also ‘lived’ by its senior leaders and managers, employees will buy in to the company’s mission more completely, and better understand how projects and actions are aligned to its overall goals. To make progress in this area, first, challenge your senior leaders: is the organisation’s
stated mission still valid, or has the business moved on? How might it need to change? How can people throughout the company contribute their ideas and sentiments?
Overworking leads to stress and ultimately, burnout. Taking steps to create a healthy workplace – such as by introducing an employee assistance programme (EAP), training mental health first aiders, and promoting healthy eating and exercise – can all help to improve employee wellbeing. But you’ll want to take a look at your organisation’s culture and the behaviours it expects employees to demonstrate.
Invest in your company’s future by investing in your people! Training and development can take many forms, but to get the best out of your team, work with them to understand what they wish to achieve in the future at work, and devise a personal development plan (PDP) to help them get there. Not only will the employee feel valued, but the business will benefit from their increased capabilities.
For further information on Employee Engagement or Employee Wellbeing Checks, please contact [email protected]
