O2 makes work a rewarding experience: How to update rewards to match employee needs
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Pages | 20-23 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390780001012 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Author | Ali Gill |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
20 Volume 6 Issue 6 September/October 2007
ECENT RESEARCH by the Chartered
Management Institute in the UK reports that
the rate of salary increase for managers,
although still higher than for the economy in
general, has slowed as employers look to provide other
benefits to address recruitment and retention issues. Yet
the same report tells us that the proportion of managers
who left for other jobs rose to seven percent last year
compared to 4.6 percent in the previous 12 months.
Whatever these companies are doing (and the report
cites an increase in child care vouchers and life
assurance schemes), it clearly isn’t working.
So what is top talent looking for? In my experience,
from working with talented employees in companies
such as Alfred McAlpine, RWE npower and Cable and
Wireless over the last 10 years, financial reward (and this
includes perks such as child care vouchers) is merely a
hygiene factor. Far more important to the ambitious and
motivated employee is a clear career path – and this isn’t
necessarily a vertical career path straight to management
–and opportunities to stretch and develop.
The trick for HR is to harness individuals’ desire for
development, link this to rewardand opportunity and
embed the process into critical HR procedures with the
sole aim of driving business success. A project carried out
bytalent management company Get feedback and
telecoms provider O2 demonstrates howto achieve this.
O2 tackles retention and development
Inearly 2006, Get feedback was invited by O2 to tackle
the issue of retention and development within its top
sales team. In recent years the corporate telecoms market
has become far morecomplex. The advance of network
capability has meant that more sophisticated data
products and services haveemerged that can be closely
matched to the needs of the client. O2 recognized that
successful delivery to this market would require an in-
depth knowledge by the salesperson of the customer’s
business. Customers would value an ongoing
relationship with an account manager who has in-depth
knowledge of their needs and can build current systems
solutions that address futureproblems.
This would mean that corporate salespeople would
need to stay with the company longer to build both
their understanding of the company’smore complex
offering and the current and future needs of their
customers. Experience had shown that financial reward
alone was not the answer.
The business leadership team realized that for O2
to continue to be successful in this changing market,
it must:
•
Address the overall skills level of the sales team.
•
Put clear blue water between the competencies of the
sales team and its competitors by establishing a set of
trusted adviser competencies unique to O2.
O2 makes work
a rewarding
experience
How to update rewards to match
employee needs
A changing and increasingly complex corporate
telecoms market made retention and development a
top priority at O2. Ali Gill, co-founding director of
talent management consultancy Get feedback,
explains how O2 addressed this challenge with a
complete overhaul of its rewards system that was
firmly integrated into HR processes and therefore
drove business success.
by Ali Gill, Get feedback R
© Melcrum publishing 2007.For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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