By Joshua Bjerke (recruiter.com)

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) most recent Reward Risk survey found that businesses are starting to overlook the importance of both attracting andretaining talent in lieu of focusing on creating benefits packages to spur motivation and engagement. Company appeal and retention have both fallen out of the top ten list of concerns measured in the CIPD survey; the first time since the inaugural survey in 2010. Instead, increasing pension costs and benefit packages have pushed attraction and retention out of the limelight.

The number one concern continues to be that employees lack appreciation of the value of total reward offerings. Second place on the list goes to the idea that employees are not engaged by the rewards being offered. Other rewards found to have gained ground on the list of top concerns include employees’ lack of performance understanding and behavior requirements and the seeming lack of motivation demonstrated for current incentives. Employers are also finding it difficult to communicate what they desire as far as performance and behavior goes.

Charles Cotton, reward advisor at CIPD, said that the growing attention given by business to rewarding employees exhibiting desired behaviors and performance is contributing to business success. He states, “Even in a stagnant labor market, key talent can find opportunities to move onward, so reward professionals shouldn’t be too complacent while they wait for the economy to eventually pick up.”

He goes on to say, “The profession must act strategically and collaboratively to identify the various ways in which a poorly designed or implemented reward strategy, coupled with external factors, such as changes in the economy or regulatory framework, could put their organization at risk.”