In this episode of The New Shape of Work, Chetna Singh, Head of Total Rewards at SAP, shares how total rewards goes beyond compensation and benefits to support transformation and innovation for employee culture and careers. She shares the SAP approach to flexible working. And, how the balance between vision and pragmatism helps SAP to continue moving into a skills-based future with employees understanding their contributions and opportunities along the transformation journey.

The employee reward landscape is adapting to better support new ways of working and it is becoming a critical lever in culture change. Total reward roles are expanding to take a broader view to help address challenges like the great resignation. With this has come innovative thinking about how rewards can shape the relationship between the employer and the employee
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Interesting moments from the interview:

  • The three C's

    "There are three C's of total rewards: The first C is very obvious, which is the compensation and benefits, which is the core or the DNA of the reward function. The second one is culture, culture is exceptionally important. …If a culture is toxic, even if you get great comp and ben you may not stay. That's why culture and rewards play a very crucial role which I will address how we play a role to define even culture of the organization. And the third part is career. Career means are you learning, are you growing, do you have enough opportunities for you to unlearn and relearn and you know, keep progressing in your career journey."
  • Driving a culture of innovation

    "By designing different reward programs you could drive a culture of innovation. I'll give you an example, if you have a benefits program that is that that takes care of all dimensions of a person, whether its different races or culture or different needs, you're able to really expand the lens of benefits and drive a culture of inclusion there. Having tailored program for LGBT community, having tailored program for working parents, that's how you drive culture of inclusion."
  • Giving in-person opportunities in a remote environment

    "One dimension which I think is very, very important, especially for people in the early part of their career, if they get used to this world where remote working is the only way they will miss out on getting coached, mentored onsite, meeting the people, the physical energy and the magic it creates."
  • Having a rewarding organization

    "[Total rewards] is one function which really can drive…different facets of organization. I talked earlier right from culture, to digitalization, to everything.  So reward organization will be asked, probably will be mandated, to say how will you define the rewards for the gig economy? How will you keep them motivated and driven for you when they're not even with your organization full-time? Right that's a big one for reward organizations. I also see the flex-worker value proposition, how would you define that? How would you make it so attractive?"

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