Research

• 89% of employers think their people leave for more money. The employees who leave for more money? Just 12%
• 9 out of 10 employees are willing to earn less money to do more meaningful work.

Statement

Enhancers of this driver

• Clarity on role and job descriptions that provide clear expectations of work.
• Regular conversations with your direct manager.
• Clear demonstration of fairness, consistency and clarity in compensation packages.
• An employee who knows their value/worth to the company.

Detractors of this driver

• No benchmarking against the competition.
• An inadequate balance between expertise, experience, and potential value.
• Not having a clear, consistent compensation strategy.

Individual

• Define your role. According to Gallup, 50% of employees don't know what they are expected to do at work. It's hard to prove that you are providing additional value if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. You need to set aside time with your manager to define what the company expects from you. Even if you feel like you have a solid grasp of what your job entails, it still may be a good idea to review job expectations with your manager to ensure that you aren't missing anything.
• Understand the value of your position. Once you understand what success looks like for your position, you need to identify how your efforts affect your employer's bottom line.
• If you're in sales, your value is easy to measure. For other positions, calculating the value of your contribution may be more difficult. However, defining the value of your efforts is key to demonstrating whether or not you deserve a pay rise. As a general rule, if your employer makes $4-5 for every $1.00 they spend on you, you have a good case for increasing your compensation.
• Identify areas where you can exceed expectations. Once you've defined your role and know how your efforts affect your employer's bottom line, it's time to create a list of projects you can do that will add additional value to the business. Work with your manager to find out what you can do to bring more to the table and how much value that will add to the business. The more specific you can get, the better. By writing down what you can do to add extra value, you set yourself up with the documentation you need to prove that you deserve higher compensation.
• Make a plan. Take a minute to identify your current compensation and where you would like it to be. Then, look at your "exceeds expectations" list and see what you need to do to be worth the level of compensation you are hoping to achieve. Once you know what you want and what you need to do to get it, take your plan to your manager and make sure that it makes sense to them, too.
• If you've done your homework correctly, this should be a straightforward conversation for your manager. You will create all sorts of added value, and they should reward you for it. On the other hand, if your manager disagrees with your plan, you're in a great position to clarify your manager's expectations. That way, you can create a plan that works for everyone, rather than investing 6 months into something your boss doesn't care about.
• Communicate regularly and adapt as needed. As you work through your plan, it's important to meet regularly with your manager to ensure everyone stays on the same page. The reality is that businesses change and what you think will provide value doesn't end up being nearly as helpful as you or your manager thought it would be. However, suppose you are willing to be flexible and focused on providing value. In that case, you'll be able to rapidly adapt to changing circumstances and ensure that you still achieve your financial goals.

Leaders

• Analyse required skills and employee success. First, employers should review each job description and list the essential skills necessary to succeed. Next, each job should be prioritised based on how integral it is to the company's success. Finally, employees should be evaluated on their success in their respective roles. Based on these factors, and with the help of salary surveys, employers can determine fair pay for each role.
• Don't rely on pay to show you care. Compensation is not how you indicate how employees are valued — that should come through in daily behaviours that show you care about each employee as a human being. Sadly, many employees don't get this kind of support and therefore look for compensation "messages" to proxy for feeling valued. Instead, try recognition, inclusion and engagement to help your employees feel valued.
• Have an honest conversation. Listen to your employees and take their concerns seriously. If they feel underpaid for what they do, do your research and market analysis. If they're correct, make appropriate adjustments. If they're not, then have an open and honest conversation with them on why you can't support the request.
• Understand and react to employees' needs. What can't be matched dollar-to-dollar can be offset by pulling other levers, including flexibility, benefits, perks, growth opportunities, etc. In addition, transparent policies and programs that reflect your employees' needs make it known that they're understood, heard and valued by their employer. Regular conversations and surveys asking for this type of feedback will allow employers to react appropriately.

Organisation

• Benchmark against the competition. Benchmarking against the competition in the marketplace is the only sensible way of understanding appropriate pay levels. How you pay and the mix of pay is an internal company decision. So start with a compensation philosophy that delineates how and why you pay team members the way you do. That internal compass will let employees know what you value and why. Be transparent about pay.
• Balance expertise, potential and market value. Experience and expertise are only part of the equation. Using multiple perspectives provides clarity for an employee's market value. A clear, objective definition of potential helps managers avoid bias, underestimation and overestimation when considering compensation. Higher potential employees know their worth, so having a strategy to pay them starts with how they are identified and managed.
• Be consistent and transparent. Employees are free to discuss their compensation amongst each other. However, employers should have a set guideline and have their lawyer or legal department review their guidelines for equality. Communicating to employees and being transparent is a great way to gain trust from employees, making them feel valued.
• Have a clear compensation strategy. Organisations must first define their compensation philosophy statement at a high level. This statement must demonstrate how the organisation views compensation stating why and purpose, how compensation data will be benchmarked, how employee's base pay is determined based on performance, variable incentives and the level of transparency for communicating the design of the compensation program.