Variable Pay: A motivation & retention tool

Over the last couple of years, it has become clear that the option of variable incentives did not work very well since most employees wanted the security of a high base pay and meeting targets was largely unpredictable. The economy is on an up-swing again and employers and employees see new opportunities for increasing incomes.

Organizations want to curtail their fixed costs, hence salaries may not increase dramatically and immediately, but variable incentive plans will help retain high-performers and encourage achievement.

As soon as we think of variable pay incentives, most of us immediately picture the sales department. But in my recent research I have found that each employee, irrespective of their department can be included in a company’s variable incentive plan. The next part of this blog explores the various categories of incentives that can be applied to employees in different job roles and how HR can use this tool to motivate and retain employees across the entire company.

Typically, each employee may get 5 – 10 different goals which determine their variable incentive plan for the year (or in some cases, even a month, quarter or half-an-year). Senior employees and those in management positions would have significantly higher goals that may be linked with the overall performance of the company or with their respective departments. For middle management positions, the targets would be based more on team performance and for junior employees, the variable incentives will focus on individual achievements.

By giving multiple targets to each employee, there is a greater opportunity for earning at least some part of the Variable Pay Incentives. This can act as a strong performance motivator and retention tool. It also enables identification of high performers who become eligible to enter the succession pipelines for key positions.

Types of variable pay incentives

Variable incentives can be broken down into multiple categories, some of which are:

Key challenges in implementing variable incentive plan

There are multiple challenges that organizations typically face when implementing a variable pay incentive plan, such as:

1. Communication of the plan to employees
2. Collection of data which can help in calculation of achievements
3. Calculation of variable incentives for a large population of employees
4. Integration of variable incentives payout with the payroll software in a timely manner
5. Communication of payout to employees in a transparent manner

We have seen HR managers spend significant hours in managing the data collection, calculations and in communication processes. Because of the effort involved, most companies design plans with a minimum possible set of employees that are absolutely required for variable incentive planning.

How Empxtrack can help

Empxtrack is integrated HR software that combines all aspects of an employee’s lifecycle in an easy-to-use browser-based application. It integrates Goal Setting and Tracking, Appraisals, Training, Self Services, HCM, Recruitment, Rewards and Recognitions or other achievement related targets such as those explained above. All these can be automatically captured or imported in Empxtrack and can be linked to Compensation management and Payroll Software.

Empxtrack captures all these details and over 1500 different parameters and helps companies manage the most complex variable incentive plans using its Pay for performance module. HR managers can, in addition, get reports on impact evaluation, scenario analysis and final payout – all in a matter of minutes.

To help design a variable incentives plan for your employees or to enable an existing plan on web-based software, please Contact Us with details of your requirements.