Reward Strategies and Trends in the United Kingdom: The Land of Diverse and Pragmatic Dreams

Many U.K. organizations have adopted the U.S. concepts of reward strategy and total rewards. This article profiles common difficulties with these strategies in the local environment, primarily relating to implementation, line management behavior, and alignment with business goals. By examining reward trends and practices in areas including job evaluation, pay structure design, and contingent and variable pay, this article demonstrates that a more realistic, tailored, diverse, and long-term approach is enabling U.K. reward professionals to come closer to fulfilling their strategic ambitions. A unique melting pot of practices is evident, with attention to internal equity as well as market rates in pay setting, flexibility, and control in pay structuring and competencies, and results in pay adjustment and individual and collective performance in bonus plans. The emphasis is on improvements rather than extraordinary new developments. And as in North America, reward management is certainly now at the heart of the HR and business agenda in the United Kingdom.