Total rewards strategy: Lift your employee value proposition

Better compensation used to be the go-to tactic for attracting and retaining talent. Today, salary is no longer item number one on employee wishlists.* Instead, people are seeking out exceptional workplace experiences that support their long-term well-being and success. 

To create strong company experiences, businesses are using a holistic approach called a total rewards strategy to compensate employees. These strategies address concerns, such as work-life balance, career growth, recognition, work flexibility, and company culture. 

Adapting this type of comprehensive strategy increases your organization’s value proposition and keeps the best talent more satisfied in the long term. Learn how to create a total rewards framework that gives your business a competitive advantage. 

*Randstad, 2025

What is a total rewards strategy?

A total rewards strategy builds a unified company experience that attracts, engages, and retains employees. 

In addition to traditional compensation and benefits, this approach integrates the full scope of the employee experience, including career development, recognition, well-being, and workplace culture. 

But it’s not simply a collection of HR programs. The most effective total rewards strategies are built on company values. 

Compensation and benefits

“Seventy-five percent of the company spend is on salaries. If that’s not effectively spent, you’re throwing money away. HR exists to make sure it’s invested wisely.” 

— Melanie Naranjo, Chief People Officer at Ethena

Although comprehensive compensation is no longer the top priority for employees, it’s still a major factor in attracting and retaining talent. According to a 2026 PwC survey, employees still seek financial security from their work. Solid base salaries and bonus incentives are important. But employees also want benefits that promote long-term stability, such as strong health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, a 401k, and parental and sick leave. 

Career development and recognition

Employees want to know how they can develop their career at an organization. Career pathing programs let employees work toward their full potential and can include:

• Learning stipends
• Mentorship programs
• Tuition reimbursement
• Clear promotion pathways
• Meaningful employee recognition 

When these career advancement programs are personalized, they improve engagement and satisfaction in the long term. Not to mention that offering career development opportunities is good for business. According to Gallup research, companies that prioritize these programs are 11% more profitable than competitors who don’t.

Well-being and workplace culture

According to a 2025 Randstad survey, employees say work-life balance is the most important factor in their current or future jobs — they rank it even higher than salary and job security. Employees today want work environments that nurture ongoing well-being. Competitive benefits can include:

• Remote work
• Wellness stipends
• Gym memberships
• Generous or unlimited paid time off policies
• Mental health insurance
• Employee assistance programs 

More than anything, employees long for safe, stress-limited workplaces that allow their careers to thrive.

How to unify total rewards into one employee experience

“Every dollar we spend on employees should be optimally spent — repurpose funds from ‘nice-to-haves’ to what drives the business forward.” 

— Melanie Naranjo, Chief People Officer at Ethena

Organizations often design their compensation and benefits programs separately from their development and recognition programs. This can give workers a disjointed perspective of their company. If an employee described your organization’s values, would they tell one consistent story or six unrelated ones?

For effective total rewards management, you should focus on crafting a coherent employee experience rooted in your values. Here’s how. 

Ensure rewards reinforce one another

One in three organizations don’t take a “holistic approach” to total rewards today, according to Mercer research. Organizations that silo compensation, benefits, recognition, and development programs may inadvertently create gaps or inconsistencies in the employee experience. For example, companies that offer great health insurance and parental leave, but not remote work, may isolate working parents looking for flexibility to manage their family schedules. 

Align rewards with different career stages

While you’ll want to tailor rewards to every individual’s priorities, here are common HR total rewards for every career stage:

• Early: Focused on skill building, such as leveraging learning opportunities, earning recognition, and making headway toward a promotion.
  
  
• Mid: Focused on job security, including strong core employee benefits (like compensation, health insurance, and parental leave) and work-life balance (like flexible work).
  
  
• Late: Focused on legacy before retirement, such as leading key projects, setting up a flexible work schedule, and increasing pension plans and PTO. 

Measure the employee experience, not just program participation

You need to look at the full picture of the employee experience to understand your strategy’s impact. Keep in mind that employees tend to judge the overall company experience, rather than the individual benefits programs, which makes it essential to track employee sentiment of your reward offerings — not just participation.

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📊 Cohesive employee experiences start with data

Centralize your employee data on Leapsome and glean insights to improve your employee experiences. Leapsome gives you full vision into compensation, performance, engagement, learning, career development, and more. 

👉Track Compensation and Performance 

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How to build an effective total rewards strategy

“The purpose of an HR function is to create a people strategy that most effectively drives business goals. It starts with the business, then you build your people strategy from there.”

— Melanie Naranjo, Chief People Officer at Ethena

Creating a total rewards strategy that aligns with your goals and effectively engages employees can be a challenge. According to Deloitte, only 11% of leaders believe their rewards strategy is aligned with their business objectives.

You should regularly evaluate your HR strategy to improve alignment with your goals. 

Understand employee needs and business priorities

Flashy perks such as free lunch sound good, but they typically don’t move the needle on employee engagement. Understand your employee priorities through regular surveys, focus groups, and exit data so you can design a total rewards model that fits your employee profiles and business priorities. 

Build and communicate an integrated rewards framework

“Transparency doesn’t mean sharing every number. It means explaining the logic — how pay decisions are made, what criteria are used, and how people can grow within the structure.”

— Alexandra Edl, Senior HR Consultant at EDL Consulting

Your total rewards framework should feel like a foundation that builds off your company values. If your culture prioritizes innovation, your strategy should reflect this through total rewards components such as learning stipends, paid study or research time, and performance bonuses. 

Measure outcomes and continuously improve

Evolving your total rewards strategy as your organization grows is worth the effort. By measuring outcomes and identifying areas of improvement, you’ll be able to keep pace with your employee priorities and attract the right talent to your (virtual) doorstep. Collect feedback on a regular schedule and follow key metrics such as employee satisfaction/sentiment, performance data, retention rate, and participation rate. 

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🎯 Embed EX into your HR systems

Better employee experiences rely on insight into compensation, performance, engagement, and learning. Connect your people data to your total rewards strategy on Leapsome. 

👉Explore Engagement

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Sharpen your employee value proposition with Leapsome

“With Leapsome, we were able to automate performance reviews, goal setting that was even prior, but now even further and onboarding and offboarding and that together helped us save about 20% of manual effort of our team.”  — Weronika Czerny-Nowakowska, Chief Operating Officer at Neurons Lab

To effectively attract and retain the best talent, your organization needs a consistent, integrated employee experience — not isolated HR programs. Designing a comprehensive strategy that highlights your employee brand can help improve employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention. 

As you unify employee experiences for long-term business success, you’ll need the right tools to enable them. With Leapsome, HR teams can connect performance management, compensation planning, learning, engagement, goals, and people analytics to create a uniform and integrated total rewards framework. 

Specifically, Leapsome supports HR leaders in creating a stronger employee value proposition by:

• Strengthening employee engagement: Surveys and Q&A Boards

• Connecting performance and rewards: Reviews, Goals, and Compensation

• Supporting career advancement: Learning, Competencies, and Instant Feedback

• Improving workforce insights: Employee Records and Analytics

Using Leapsome means you can refine employee experiences to make an impact across the lifecycle and evolve your total rewards strategy as your workforce grows. 

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🧩 Unify your employee lifecycle

Leapsome helps craft meaningful employee experiences by connecting performance, compensation, learning, engagement, goals, and analytics for maximum impact. 

👉Request a demo

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FAQ

What is a total rewards program?

A total rewards program is a comprehensive package offered to employees that includes:

• Compensation
• Bonuses
• Traditional benefits, such as health insurance and retirement accounts
• Career development opportunities
• Wellness offerings, such gym memberships or flexible work schedules

These programs help organizations recruit and retain the best talent.