Feb 15, 2022
Rewarding Employees & ESPP
Hi again, I have decided to continue my posts on HR-related topics. I hope these writings attract your attention and help you broaden your horizons.
While preparing for the interviews, I‘d like to share the new concepts I encountered with you. Today‘s topics are why rewarding people are important, examples of rewarding people and Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP).
As I said before, I have had experience in different HR units as an HRBP, then as a team leader, and I always had kept in touch with the compensation & benefit team. However, I realized that I didn‘t have enough information about ESPP so it might be called a new concept for me and I can’t wait to share it with you🤓.
Yet first, let’s start with recognition & reward
We all saw how important this topic was during the pandemic. Of course, this is crucial not only for employees in difficult situations but also for attracting and engaging top talents in companies.
Almost every organization has a performance and reward management process and program, but not many employees think it is working properly and is aligned with business strategies.
As we all agree, the top topics on leader‘s plate are “adapting quickly by being flexible“ (that means agility) and “making the organization attractive for top talents and current employees“ (that refers to the best place to work). Therefore, recognizing and rewarding current employees and newcomers are significant to be called an innovative, diverse cultural company.
Maybe you know ATD magazine or blog. I‘m a big fan of their surveys and articles. So before my interview, I searched out some numbers about this topic. According to ATD performance management report from 2020, 94% of companies have performance management processes and less than half of the talent development professionals surveyed believe that these processes are highly effective. All organizations should consider developing their performance and reward processes while thinking holistically and they need to update their conservative methods, which don‘t fit new working conditions. To make a long story short, there is room for organizations to improve their systems in this area.
The most common methods companies use to reward employees for good performance are salary increases and promotions, and both ways are applied by two-thirds of companies. On the other hand, most admired companies offer lots of comprehensive and competitive benefits such as wellness program memberships, activity and event tickets, full access to LinkedIn Learning or other learning platforms, flexible work options (windowed working) or paid time off to volunteer, etc.
In fact, recognition of good performance is linked to higher employee engagement, increased productivity, and increased company loyalty but the main questions are below:
Are these benefits enough to feel valuable? Or are they sufficiant for us to continue our careers in our companies?
All HR units are together
When we think about diverse, corporate and innovative companies, the first thing that comes to my mind is aligned and effective HR units. For instance, in my last position as a learning and performance development team leader, all our processes were aligned with performance, leadership and compensation & benefit teams. For example, if you‘re an internal instructor on a specific topic, you‘re giving lessons and at the end of the month, you‘ll be rewarded with a bonus. Of course, the size of this reward depends on your company‘s budget and perspective on rewarding employees. It might be a bonus or a small incentive such as an e-magazine subscription, a bookstore check or an electronic equipment which can be used for sessions.
Just imagine an HR system aligned with all HR units, where recruitment, career management, academy, leadership and compensation & benefit functions are connected to each other. Let me give you another example; the first step of the employee lifecycle is recruitment and finding the correct candidates for open positions is challenging, especially for managerial ones. The candidate should be in line with the company‘s values, and the real difficult thing is to draw top talent‘s attention to the company. In these cases, solid and competitive rewarding packages help HR professionals attract potential candidates. In addition to that, an employee referral program inside the company helps recruiters find better matching candidates. Also, these sharing platforms can be used for rewarding current employees.
ESPP is getting more and more popular as a benefit
If you follow the business news globally, you have already heard or know about it. ESPP is not just on the agenda of big global companies but also in the middle of the start-ups‘ table. In fact, in today’s rapidly-changing world, the companies that provide their employees well-considered and personalized benefits will survive.
One of my friends just got an offer that included ESPP and this subject was also asked to me in the interview I attended the same week. When you search about it on the web or talk with your friends, it looks a bit confusing but I’ll try to explain it as easily as possible. An employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) is a benefit that allows employees to purchase their company stock at a discounted rate, sometimes reaching up to 15%.
These well-planned programs offer employees a chance to invest their money in their companies‘ stocks. Well, it makes sense. As for companies, they aim to improve overall performance, have extra motivation to work hard and meet their goals by providing ESPP for their employees.
Well, is it possible to lose money on an ESPP?
Of course, we should take this with a grain of salt. As you know, things can go wrong for your company, and the stock value can drop very quickly.
If you are more interested in this subject, you can review the examples in the link I shared below:
In a nutshell, if ESPP is included in the benefit package offered to you, you had better think twice before taking any action but it‘ll be one of the most must-have benefits that we will face in the future.
That‘s all for now. Thank you for reading, Tschüss!
