Book profile
The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits and Total Rewards
One book, placed in its field — what WorldatWork's book gets right, where it goes further than the rest, and what the rest of the field adds.
By Mike West · July 25, 2026
The modern employment deal requires a shift from focusing solely on compensation and benefits to a comprehensive 'Total Rewards' strategy. The WorldatWork Total Rewards model consists of five integrated elements: Compensation, Benefits, Work-Life, Performance and Recognition, and Development and Career Opportunities. A successful Total Rewards strategy must be aligned with the organization's business strategy, HR strategy, and culture to attract, motivate, and retain the right talent.
The modern employment deal requires a shift from focusing solely on compensation and benefits to a comprehensive 'Total Rewards' strategy. The WorldatWork Total Rewards model consists of five integrated elements: Compensation, Benefits, Work-Life, Performance and Recognition, and Development and Career Opportunities. A successful Total Rewards strategy must be aligned with the organization's business strategy, HR strategy, and culture to attract, motivate, and retain the right talent.
The reader You are building a real capability: The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits and Total Rewards.
The external problem. Talent Attraction and Retention erodes when it is left to instinct instead of method.
The internal problem. You were taught the moves piecemeal, never the whole model.
The path
- Master total rewards program design.
- Master effective rewards communication.
- Master business strategy alignment.
Success. Talent Attraction and Retention becomes something you produce by design, not by luck.
At stake. You stay dependent on instinct, and it fails you when the stakes are highest.
Organizational Performance
The ultimate business and financial results of the organization. This includes metrics such as profitability, revenue growth, market share, and shareholder return, which are the final outcomes of having an engaged, productive, and stable workforce.
Why it matters. Without a credible line from rewards to business results, total rewards is defended as a cost center and cut first in downturns—precisely when its retention value peaks.
The myth: That you can draw a clean, direct ROI line from a specific rewards program to profitability or shareholder return.
The reality: Rewards influence organizational performance indirectly and with lag—through engagement, retention, and productivity—amid many confounding factors; the honest case is a probabilistic chain of evidence, not a single causal coefficient.
How to:
- Build the causal story stepwise—reward to perceived value to engagement to retention/performance to results—and measure at each link.
- Pair internal trend data with external evidence on the engagement-performance relationship to make the case credible.
- Frame rewards investment in terms of the business outcomes leadership already tracks, using their language.
Grounded in: The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits and Total Rewards