Exclusive: DECIEM’s reward head on building a ‘grown up’ strategy

RS: What would you say has dramatically changed in reward over the past year?

ML: For reward teams, it was to quickly adjust to the ‘war for talent’ and new market demands caused by the ‘great resignation’. It has meant higher demands from incoming talent, and us working to make sure that we can fulfil recruiting needs, while also maintaining internal equity and fairness with our existing team.

RS: Has this change been a positive or a negative move on the reward sector?

ML: Any change is an opportunity at DECIEM. As a high growth company, these changes forced us to solidify our compensation and total rewards vision and strategy. We quickly became a class A rewards team with a leading edge strategy, adapting to the new demands, being creative and open to taking unique approaches, and adding advanced analytics to understand our workforce and the market.

RS: How has DECIEM adapted to this?

ML: Our holistic approach went beyond compensation. We listened to understand the needs of our employees and then divided the strategy into three main blocks: solve the base needs of our employees by calibrating pay, create more opportunities for balance, flexibility, and belonging, reinforce culture and purpose. No matter how quickly we evolve our reward strategy, we know that you can make more money if you change jobs right now. We do things such as profit sharing across all positions, to make sure everyone knows they are important and contribute in a meaningful way. Beyond compensation, we’ll continue to focus on our people‘s wellbeing so that DECIEM continues to be their home.

RS: What about the last five, 10, 20 years?

ML: DECIEM is still a young company (almost nine years old), and this forced us to ‘grow up’ and become much more sophisticated. This included formalising our vision, strategy and processes. We also went from being driven by DECIEM and senior leadership expectations to listening, adapting and being focused on the employees’ expectations.

RS: How are you tackling employee mental health and wellbeing?

ML: For us, it’s about making sure our employees feel a sense of safety and support. This includes things such as 24/7 access to counselling, frequent listening sessions and launching the DECIEM Family Fund, which offers financial aid to those who experience a crisis or tragedy in their lives. It’s also about helping our DECIEM family find purpose in their work despite the uncertainty in the world. Examples of this are DECIEM’s The Good Day or Voting and Protesting Days (paid days for volunteering or activism).

RS: What challenges do you expect in regards to employee wellbeing in 2022?

ML: We are very attentive to employee data and sentiments through our various listening strategies, and like many companies I think our biggest challenge will be to deal with the unknown. We can’t predict what exactly they will be, so we have to stay resilient and agile.

RS: Do you expect the focus on wellbeing during the pandemic to remain, slow down or speed up going forward?

ML: Pandemic or not, we will only continue to foster employee wellbeing, and enhance the ways that we connect with, and support our people. This is really core to who we are, as we want to build a human world of beauty, and our people and the communities that we touch are central to that vision.

RS: Do you expect new trends to crop up in 2022 for the reward sector?

ML: I think we will continue to see that pay alone is not enough, and once the talent crisis and hiring surge settles down, those who have focused on a more holistic strategy that considers employees’ overall experience will come out ahead.

RS: How do you plan to navigate them?

ML: With the support of our talent effectiveness, internal communications and people analytics teams, we will continue to listen to understand the needs of our employees and the different demands across the business.

Find out how the world of reward is changing at the Payroll & Reward Conference this June. Secure your ticket here.