5RMT Reward Management

Introduction to the unit

Reward management is a unit that is meant to help learners understand the reward strategies that are meant to help the learners acquire knowledge that help reward professionals make the right decisions to support reward strategies in business. Learners pursuing this unit acquire theoretical understanding of the approaches used by professionals to enhance management of reward practices in the business. Reward management is a unit meant to develop approaches used by the professionals to ensure that the pay given to the employees is fair, equitable, and reasonable. The learners by pursuing this unit get to understand the values of the workers, and thus have to identify the strategies that have to be considered in creating value for the people working in a particular organisation. Good reward systems within organisations promote employee performance and productivity.

The reward management unit is meant to help the HR professionals who face challenges in managing pay and compensation of the employees. The need to have professionals manage rewards comes in on basis of the changed labour market regulations and work flexibility, which are considered to be contributors to the development of how employees are paid on basis of the skills, contribution to the organisation, experience and commitment. Learners pursuing the course therefore have to be keen to ensure that they are just in making decisions and judgements supporting the fair rewarding of the employees.

Equal and transparency pay management

The learners pursuing the unit should understand that the issue of equal pay is very significant to promoting equality among all the employees. Learners may use different ways to ensure that they promote equal pay to employees. Pay structures ate used to organise how pay is graded in the organisation. The pay structure is also used to determine the pay increases in respect to the performance of the employees, their competencies, and skills. Learners have the responsibility of ensuring that they understand the complexity of the situations influencing or impacting the decisions made on pay and rewards. In addition, being transparent is an issue considered to be significant in managing rewards in the organisation. Employers have to take responsibility in ensuring that pay transparency is promoted, an aspect that promotes value for the people, and which provides support to the business and its people. The unit therefore provides an insight on the issues that should be considered towards promoting equal pay to the employees. The knowledge gained from the unit is therefore significant in determining how well the information influences the decision made by the professionals towards making pay and rewards equal and transparent.

Why people ask for pay rise

Employees ask for pay rise for different reasons, and these are issues that the learners should be able to understand and reason with in order to learn what the expectations of the employees are. The unit provides information on these reasons, and most importantly, on the different issues influencing the reasons, such as the age and generation of the employees, and their places of work, whether they work in public or private organisations. Some of the employees however find it difficult to explain why they need pay rise, and some end up saying that they do not need pay rise because they are comfortable, or because they feel that the pay they get supports their standard of living. Therefore, the unit is meant to help learners understand how they should deal with the employees and promote new ways of understanding the basis of pay and pay increase for the employees.

Role of line managers in managing pay

The line managers have to make significant contributions to managing pay in the organisation. This means that they have the authority to make proposed changes regarding pay increase to be made to employees. Nevertheless, the HR professionals should understand that the line managers are only agents of contribution, but they rarely approve the salary increases. The learners therefore have to be keen to ensure that they get information from the line managers, and use the information to make the right decisions regarding pay increase. The line managers also ensure that they pass on information regarding the pay policies to their subordinates. Most of the employees get information from their immediate management, and therefore on issues regarding pay and rewards, the management should also be involved, as these are the people who work directly with the employees. In this perspective, the unit explains the concept of pay risk, which has to be effectively managed to ensure that the problems associated with pay decision making are well addressed to support organisational change and improvement.

Learning objectives

By the end of the course, students should;

• Learn the relationships of strategies in the environment and the reward systems that enhance good management of the organisations
• Understand the theoretical debates involved in promoting management of rewards within the organisation
• Be able to compare the traditional, contingent, and knowledge choices of rewards
• Learn how to design the pay and reward structures that are acceptable in the labour market, and which contribute significantly to provision of equitable pay to the employees
• Learn how to analyse the executive pay of employees win the global labour market, paying interests to the employees working as expatriates in the international market
• Be in a position to identify the key issues ion reward management, and ensure that the right approaches are considered in managing pay and rewards for the employees.

The unit is suitable for;

• Learners pursing HR, and who intend to increase their knowledge and expertise in the HR field.
• HR professionals taking responsibility in HR decision making process in their workplaces, at any level of business operation
• Learners who have no speciality but are involved in carrying out some of the HR functions within the organisation
• HR consultants who act independently in supporting the organisations meet the goals and objectives within the organisation
• Learners who want to grow their careers in HR and who have the aspirations to pursue other CIPD units

Winding up;

Reward management is a unit in the CIPD Level 5, and students taking the unit should complete an assessment of 4000 words, explaining the reward environment in an organisation that they work in or are familiar with. The assessment covers the aspects of fair and transparent pay, pay progression, and role of line managers in managing rewards.