Human resource management practice I also available by michael armstrong

Implementing reward strategy

The aim of implementation is to make the reward 

strategy an operational reality by building the capacity 

of the organization to put into practice the proposals 

worked out in the development stage. As Armstrong 

and Brown (2006: 159) stressed: ‘It is always essential 

to design with implementation in mind.’

But  implementation  problems  can  arise  for  the 

following reasons:

 

●

Over-engineering – reward specialists (both 

practitioners and consultants) are often 

tempted to design highly complicated 

processes that are hard to explain and justify 

and even harder to operate.

 

●

Misalignment – the integration of business 

and HR strategies is not achieved when 

formulating the strategy.

 

●

Precipitant implementation – new policies 

and practices are not tested properly to 

identify potential implementation problems 

arising from poor design; the absence of 

adequate supporting processes such as 

performance management.

There are two ways of dealing with these problems. 

First,  wherever  possible,  the  new  or  significantly 

altered  reward  process  should  be  pilot  tested  in  a 

division or department or with a selected sample 

of employees. The second approach, which can be 

used  where  there  is  more  than  one  component  of 

the reward strategy, is to phase the introduction of 

the different parts. An incremental approach means 

that people are given the time to absorb and adjust 

to the new practice, and the resources such as HR 

support  required  to  deliver  the  strategy  are  not 

overstretched.