Total Rewards Strategy: Are Employees Getting the Full Value?

Organizations invest significantly in their workforce through compensation, benefits, recognition, wellbeing, career development, paid leave, retirement programs, flexibility, and other employee offerings. But the size of a Total Rewards package alone does not determine its value.

The real question is whether employees understand, value, and engage with what their organization provides.

That distinction matters more than ever. WorldatWork’s 2026 State of Rewards research found that 77% of employees report satisfaction with their benefits and 69% with compensation, yet only 44% say they are extremely likely to remain with their employer over the next year. The same research found employee engagement at just 31%, its lowest level in a decade.

Meanwhile, Total Rewards represents a substantial organizational investment. SHRM describes compensation and benefits as among an organization's largest expenses and positions Total Rewards as a business lever for improving retention, engagement, and workforce ROI.

That creates an important challenge for Total Rewards leaders:

Offering more isn't necessarily the answer. Getting more value from what you're already offering may be.

What Is a Total Rewards Strategy?

Total Rewards extends far beyond salary and traditional health benefits.

A modern Total Rewards strategy can include:

• Base compensation
• Bonuses and performance incentives
• Health and welfare benefits
• Retirement programs
• Paid and unpaid leave
• Employee recognition
• Career development and learning opportunities
• Financial wellness
• Workplace flexibility
• Wellbeing initiatives
• Caregiver and dependent support
• Culture and community programs
• Employee incentives and rewards

WorldatWork's Total Rewards Inventory reflects this breadth, covering compensation, recognition, development, health and welfare, leave, retirement, financial wellness, flexibility, culture initiatives, and other employee offerings.

The goal is not simply to accumulate more programs. An effective Total Rewards strategy creates an employee experience that supports the organization's talent and business objectives while delivering value employees can actually recognize.

And that's where many organizations encounter a gap.

The Total Rewards Challenge Isn't Always What You Offer

Organizations can build competitive programs and still struggle to generate the engagement they expected.

An employee may have access to valuable benefits but not fully understand them. Another may participate in some programs but ignore others. Recognition may exist but feel generic or inconsistent. Development resources may be available without employees taking advantage of them.

In other words: Availability does not automatically create engagement.

WorldatWork's research underscores the issue. Its 2025 study of Total Rewards leaders found that improving employee understanding of rewards was a major priority, while 36% of organizations identified benefits optimization and expansion as a focus for their 2025 goals.

The opportunity for Total Rewards teams is therefore not simply to ask: What else should we offer?

It is to ask: Are employees getting enough value from what we're already investing in?

Employee Expectations Are Not One-Size-Fits-All

One reason Total Rewards strategies are difficult to optimize is simple: employees value different things.

Pay matters. So do benefits. But employees also care about flexibility, recognition, meaningful work, time off, career opportunities, and other elements of the employment experience.

WorldatWork's 2026 State of Rewards research illustrates those differences. When employees were forced to identify their top three factors for staying with an employer long term, 70% selected pay, 60% flexibility, 40% benefits, and 36% meaningful work.

Those priorities can also change based on career stage, life circumstances, role, location, and individual needs. That's why Total Rewards optimization isn't necessarily about finding one perfect mix for everyone.

It's about creating a strategy with enough relevance and flexibility to support a diverse workforce while remaining aligned with organizational goals and budgets.

There May Be a Gap Between What Leaders Think Employees Value and What Employees Actually Value

Even experienced leaders can misjudge employee preferences.

WorldatWork found that 68% of managers were very or extremely confident they understood what employees value, yet its research uncovered meaningful perception gaps between managers and employees.

For example, managers underestimated the importance employees placed on flexibility, benefits, and paid time off while overestimating the relative importance of career advancement.

That disconnect creates risk.

Organizations can invest significant resources into programs they believe employees should value without generating the engagement they expected.

A stronger Total Rewards strategy starts with listening.

Employee surveys, utilization data, participation rates, engagement metrics, feedback, and other workforce insights can help leaders understand which programs employees value, where participation is falling short, and where resources may have greater impact.

Communication Is Part of the Total Rewards Strategy

A strong program has limited value when employees don't understand it.

That sounds obvious, yet communicating the full value of Total Rewards remains challenging because employees receive information from many sources throughout the year.

Benefits enrollment happens at one time. Recognition happens somewhere else. Development opportunities may come from individual managers. Wellness communications may arrive through another channel. Retirement information may appear only periodically.

From the employee's perspective, the organization's substantial Total Rewards investment can become a collection of disconnected programs.

That's why communication and education matter.

WorldatWork reported that better communication and education topped the list when Total Rewards leaders were asked what they would most like to change about their organization's approach to Total Rewards.

Employees need to understand not only what is available, but why it matters to them.

Recognition Can Help Bring Total Rewards to Life

Recognition is one of the most immediate ways organizations can make the employee experience feel tangible and personal.

Gallup and Workhuman found that 55% of U.S. employees either receive no recognition or receive recognition that fails to meet any of the five pillars they identify with strategic recognition. Employees whose recognition meets at least four of those pillars are nine times as likely to be engaged as employees whose recognition meets none.

Separate Gallup-Workhuman research found that well-recognized employees were 45% less likely to have turned over two years later.

Recognition therefore shouldn't be viewed only as an occasional employee perk.

When aligned with a broader Total Rewards strategy, it can help reinforce organizational priorities, acknowledge meaningful contributions, and create more visible connections between employee actions and the value an employer provides.

Incentives Can Help Turn Awareness Into Participation

Communication helps employees understand programs. Incentives can help give them a reason to act.

Organizations can use targeted incentives to encourage participation in specific activities, such as:

• Completing professional development or training
• Participating in wellbeing initiatives
• Reaching performance or recognition milestones
• Completing employee surveys or feedback initiatives
• Participating in benefits education or enrollment activities
• Achieving safety or operational goals
• Engaging in financial wellness programs
• Supporting company initiatives or community programs

The important distinction is that the reward isn't the strategy.

The desired employee action is the strategy. The incentive helps reinforce it.

That makes incentives particularly useful when Total Rewards teams can identify a gap between a valuable program being available and employees actually engaging with it.

Choice Can Increase the Relevance of Rewards

A diverse workforce makes standardized rewards difficult. A reward that feels meaningful to one employee may have little relevance to another.

Providing choice allows organizations to maintain a consistent incentive structure while giving individual employees greater flexibility in how they're rewarded.

Gift cards can be particularly useful within this approach because they combine the distinct experience of receiving a reward with flexibility for the recipient.

Instead of trying to predict one reward that will appeal equally to everyone, organizations can create reward experiences that recognize individual preferences while remaining aligned with program objectives.

How GiftCard Partners Helps Total Rewards Teams

For Total Rewards leaders, the challenge is often bigger than selecting a reward.

Programs need to be designed around the right employee actions, supported by appropriate reward options, delivered consistently, and structured in a way that can scale across different employee populations and initiatives.

GiftCard Partners works with organizations to develop incentive and reward strategies that complement their broader Total Rewards programs.

That can include helping organizations determine where gift card incentives make sense, which reward structures align with specific employee populations and program goals, and how to create experiences that offer employees meaningful choice without losing organizational consistency.

Through solutions such as the Engage2Reward™ Gift Card Ordering Platform, organizations can support a variety of employee incentive and recognition initiatives with digital and physical gift cards, choice-based rewards, campaign management, personalization, fulfillment, and reporting.

But technology should support the strategy—not define it.

The starting point is understanding the outcome the organization wants to achieve: What do you want employees to understand, value, or do differently?

From there, incentives can be designed around the behaviors and moments where additional motivation can make a meaningful difference.

How to Evaluate Your Total Rewards Strategy

Total Rewards leaders looking to get more from existing investments can begin with a few straightforward questions:

Are employees aware of what we offer?
A benefit employees don't understand may be functionally invisible.

Are employees participating?
Look beyond availability and measure utilization, completion, participation, and engagement where appropriate.

Do employees value what we're providing?
Employee preferences should inform program design rather than assumptions alone.

Are we rewarding the behaviors that matter?
Recognition and incentives are most strategic when connected to meaningful actions and organizational priorities.

Are we giving employees enough choice?
A diverse workforce may require flexibility rather than a universal reward.

Can we measure what is working?
Participation, engagement, utilization, retention, employee feedback, and other relevant KPIs can help identify where Total Rewards investments are generating value and where changes may be needed.

The Bottom Line: Total Rewards Value Depends on Employee Engagement

A comprehensive Total Rewards package can be a powerful competitive advantage, but only when employees recognize and experience its value.

The goal isn't necessarily to add another benefit, another program, or another line item to the Total Rewards budget.

Sometimes the greater opportunity is to make existing investments work harder.

That means helping employees understand what's available, creating compelling reasons to participate, recognizing meaningful actions, providing relevant choices, and measuring whether programs are producing the outcomes they were designed to support.

The question for Total Rewards leaders isn't simply, “What are we offering employees?”

It's:

“Are employees getting enough value from what we're already investing in—and is the organization getting enough value in return?”

GiftCard Partners can help organizations answer that question and build targeted incentive and reward strategies that complement existing Total Rewards programs, increase participation, and make recognition more meaningful.

Talk with GiftCard Partners about how targeted incentives and meaningful reward choice can help strengthen your Total Rewards strategy.

Sources

• WorldatWork — The 2026 State of Rewards
• WorldatWork — Total Rewards Inventory of Programs & Practices
• WorldatWork — Total Rewards Leaders Share 2025 Goals, Priorities in New Study
• SHRM — Total Rewards
• Gallup — Employee Retention Depends on Getting Recognition Right
• Gallup & Workhuman — Recognition in the Workplace Research