Total Rewards Action Recording: The Pros and Cons of a People-First Rewards Strategy - 11/05/20

Call facilitator Mark Englizian welcomed featured guest Fay Manolios to i4cp’s November 5, 2020 Total Rewards Action Call. Manolios is Managing Vice President and Head of Total Rewards at financial firm Capital One.

Manolios describes Capital One as the nation’s fifth-largest consumer bank and eighth largest bank overall. The firm offers a spectrum of financial products and services for consumers, small businesses, and commercial clients. In addition, Capital One is well-known for its credit cards. The mission of the company is to change banking for good and help customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity and humanity to banking.

Key Ideas Shared Today:

1. What does people-first mean to Manolios as a rewards professional?
   • It may be seen as a nuance because organizations have to focus on financial resiliency in order to remain viable operations. However, happy employees who feel valued and cared for are drivers of happy customers.
   • A people-first organization explicitly values the happiness and well-being of employees and sees the value of caring for people first.
   • Such organizations focus on developing programs that support employee success and help employees thrive.
   • A heightened awareness of potential effects on employees is at the core of strategy and decision-making.
2. Explicit expression of value for people is important
   • Overt value of employees is expressed through actions and decision-making
   • Words mean nothing if actions aren’t aligned with expressed company values.
   • Strategy investments and leadership appointments tend to be tell-tale signs of an organization’s value for its people.
   • People-centric strategies won’t be perfect, but efforts should align with values.
3. Effects of pandemic and company responses based on a people-first perspective
   • COVID-19 has put organizations’ values to the test.
   • Showing care for the holistic well-being of people is a telling response indicating a people-first perspective.
   • Enabling employees to work from home during the pandemic is a major example of putting people first that many organizations have instituted.
   • Other examples: providing additional/appreciation pay for employees who could not work from home, expanding paid leave programs to enable employees to address their well-being needs and family obligations, making telehealth options available, finding ways to make up for cut benefits or rewards, awarding bonuses when demand and sales recover.
   
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Access the recording of today’s full Total Rewards Action Call here

Register for the next Total Rewards Call and other weekly Action Calls
at i4cp’s Employer Resource Center