The future of the rewards profession: Let the sleeping beauty rise

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses the results of a survey among 126 reward professionals dealing with their profession's current and future state. The study looks at reward managers' current time occupations and competencies. It also takes a future perspective by looking at the importance of the different underlying reward principles for the future. Comparing the current with desired future state, the study provides a gap analysis, showing that employee vitality, the employee reward experience, remote working, recognition, reward communication, and data management are the main domains where skill development is needed. It shows that reward management is entering a new era, an era of more employee centricity.