How to overcome total rewards obstacles and truly drive business impact

Complex global issues and a volatile business climate have increased the need for organizations to execute a total rewards strategy that delivers value on investment all while attracting, engaging and retaining talent.

The WTW 2025 Benefit Trends Survey highlights key actions organizations are taking to manage costs and continue to deliver a high-quality employee experience:

• 57% are focusing on reallocating spend to get more value from current investments
• 87% plan to place more emphasis on an employee-focused benefits strategy
• 76% plan to use personalized nudges to influence behavior and enhance the employee experience

Even with the best intentions to invest in employees through thoughtfully designed total rewards, leaders frequently encounter familiar challenges that can stand in the way of progress.

Here are common hurdles organizations encounter, as well as strategies to maximize the return on total rewards investment.

Obstacle 1: ‘There’s too much uncertainty right now to review our total rewards offering’

The question isn’t if change is coming, but how you will support your people through it.

You can’t manage disruption without dialogue.

People are at the center of what you do, and maintaining experiences that motivate employees to thrive, be resilient and continue to deliver impact for the business is critical.

Undoubtedly there will be scenario planning, assessment of programs and policies, and modeling of plan design changes occurring.

While there could be a tendency to pull back during uncertainty, now is the time to double-down with renewed energy toward listening and communication.

WTW’s employee engagement data is already showing employees feeling less confident to bring their voice to work, less recognized and less inspired.

Giving employees the opportunity to have input on their total rewards preferences, and what trade-offs they are willing to consider, gives you actionable insights to navigate disruption successfully.

Understanding their needs informs what to prioritize for better outcomes and makes them feel part of any decisions taken, critical for maintaining trust.

Keeping a pulse on what matters most for employees, positions you to be faster and more nimble to address issues and risks that are identified through the data.

It also helps you make decisions in real time, communicate with the right people at the right time and ensure your employees continue to deliver the impact required to drive organizational success.

Obstacle 2: ‘We can’t invest in every element of our total rewards program; so why ask the questions?’

If you’re worried about not being able to meet employee expectations in your total rewards strategy, not having an open dialogue with them isn’t going to help.

In reality, withholding open communication can exacerbate challenges by negatively impacting both engagement and motivation.

Additionally, it eliminates the opportunity to collect valuable insights that could validate or challenge existing assumptions when it comes to total reward preferences.

Recognizing employees’ voices allows them to feel like they are being heard and invested in, while providing insights that allow you to:

• Understand total rewards needs versus wants across your employee population
• Target communications about your benefits in a more personalized way
• Redirect budgets to programs that align with what people value, improving outcomes and delivering better ROI
• Increase awareness and appreciation of your total rewards programs with a renewed focus on improved communications

Obstacle 3: ‘Our employees don’t fully leverage what our total rewards program offers now’

If you have a competitive total rewards program, but your people don’t see the value and it isn’t driving employee impact, you may not have a total rewards problem.

You likely have a listening and communication problem.

Let’s think about total rewards through a marketing lens:

• Know your audience

Gather employee insights to get a clear picture of how employees are feeling and find where they need more help.

Compare these insights to your total rewards offerings and build a strategy to engage key demographics and key segments of your population to maximize your impact.

Craft your story to those key segments and identify different communication channels to ensure employees receive the message when they are likely to need it the most.

• Highlight your strengths

Use benchmarking data to demonstrate what sets your program apart and communicate your standing to employees.

Take a cue from top commercial brands. They don’t hide their competitive position.

Make sure employees know that you’re investing in the best programs for them and their families.

• Enable change agents

Enlist and enable your managers to support your messaging and help build awareness of the total rewards programs, and their value, with their teams.

Employees typically go to their managers for their initial questions, so it’s key to get them on board with your total rewards value proposition and to educate them on the tools and resources that are available to all employees.

By aligning strategies with workforce needs and showcasing program strengths through effective listening and communication channels, organizations can bridge the knowledge gap and ensure employees understand and value their total rewards offerings.

Ultimately, addressing this communication challenge is essential to maximize the impact and utilization of your total rewards programs.

• Target the right people

Having insights and data enables you to identify opportunities for quick wins, where the gaps are and how to meet people where they currently are.

Technology is a great enabler for reaching the right people, with the right information at the moments they need it.

Using digital platforms can help you integrate employee listening with personalized communications to encourage desired behaviors and motivate people to act in real time.

By delivering personalized communication at scale in a meaningful way, you can achieve a total rewards breakthrough.

Obstacle 4: ‘Our C-Suite doesn’t understand the importance of total rewards optimization’

To win in business, you need to win with people.

Without the right people and the right people delivering impact, organizations are at risk of under-performing.

Any people program, policy or initiative that links employee performance with the value they deliver to the organization should always be important to your C-Suite.

To get attention from your leaders, there are several ways to frame your total rewards optimization conversations:

• Align total rewards with your business strategy

Ultimately you’re trying to design programs that will help with employee performance, productivity, retention and elevate the overall employee experience.

There’s a crucial link between employee impact and business impact and total rewards is a critical component of this.

• Focus on the financials

Deeply understand your total rewards financials and how your portfolio of total rewards programs and resources impacts your organizations income statement, balance sheet and earnings per share.

It helps to establish credibility when discussing your total rewards strategy and program viability with the C-Suite.

• Shift the narrative from cost to investment

Discussing total rewards through an investment lens sets the stage for an additional risk conversation. What happens if you don’t listen and gather the insights to understand what people value most; what happens if you don’t look at how you’re communicating what you offer; and what happens if you don’t invest in your workforce?

There could be risks to productivity, innovation, collaboration, retention and ultimately put your organization at a competitive disadvantage in the market.

Employees are your advocates, ambassadors and customers; total rewards needs to be a strategic choice and valued investment to achieve the business priorities.

Obstacle 5: ‘We don’t have the budget for this’

Unless your total rewards programs have a positive impact on the employee experience, they aren’t delivering the value needed.

Maximizing the impact of your total rewards investment doesn’t have to mean spending more on your programs.

If you have mechanisms in place to access insights that tell you what your employees value, like a total rewards optimization survey, you can start identifying opportunities and gaps that can be closed with minimal investment.

You then use those insights to craft a communication strategy and approach that will raise awareness and appreciation of everything you have to offer.

Effective communication should be personalized, relevant and give employees reasons to care by highlighting how your robust total rewards offerings are there when they need them the most.

Understanding the needs of your employees, optimizing what’s available based on employee preferences and communicating in a meaningful way helps to create the total rewards impact that truly matters.