Vlerick Expertise in Human Resource Management

The expectations final-year students have of their first job are still high. Good communication with their colleagues, a sociable atmosphere and plenty of opportunities for training are at the top of the list. What is more, these millennials prioritise career security over job security. They consider their relationship with their first employer to be temporary, expecting to work for a whole range of different companies during their working life. However, the Covid-19 outbreak has toned down their optimism about the future. Now afraid that fewer jobs will be available to suit their skills and qualifications, they are once again attaching greater importance to job security.

If companies want to boost their short-term profitability, the best way to do it is to grant a high remuneration level and commit strongly to incentives such as bonuses and share-related reward schemes. It is striking, however, that this has a boomerang effect on the company’s longer-term financial performance. As it turns out, high variable pay and a strong emphasis on profitability criteria have a negative impact on company profits. This is a remarkable finding in the annual survey of top salaries by the Executive Remuneration Research Centre.

Agility is an emerging key dimension of business excellence. Yet, many organisations are still struggling with implementing agile approaches in the area of performance and reward management. That’s why the Centre for Excellence in Strategic Talent Management, the Centre for Excellence in Strategic Rewards and Chair partner Hudson joined forces for a new study that results in 10 key findings, each representing a phenomenon, trend or influence currently playing in agile working contexts.

Belgian companies are very dissatisfied with the fiscal and parafiscal levies on salaries. In particular, they are frustrated with the high taxation on fixed and variable salaries and the approach to taxation of the mobility budget. Only the taxation of supplementary pensions can count on any support. With a view to the future, many companies are arguing for extensive reforms, with as the basic principle a downscaling of the profusion of fiscal and parafiscal schemes for non-statutory benefits in combination with lower levies on the fundamental elements, and in particular, the fixed and variable salaries. These are the main findings of a detailed study by Professor Xavier Baeten on the taxation and social security of various remuneration tools.

In these turbulent times, it is more important than ever for organisations to have the right person in the right place at the right time. However, it is also good for employees to change roles regularly within the organisation: this gives them the opportunity to develop, learn new things and work with new people. In his PhD, Philip Rogiers investigated how the internal mobility of employees could be further improved. Although he studied this in a government context, his conclusions apply to all kinds of organisations.

To survive and excel in a volatile business context, it has been argued that organisations need to adopt a more purpose-driven approach in doing business that transcends profits. Creating and establishing such strong and shared corporate purpose, however, can be a complex process. In the whitepaper ‘The Case for Purpose: Demistifying the field’, Professor Koen Dewettinck and researcher Emmy Defever aim to provide a clear understanding of what purpose is and why it matters.

Vlerick’s Centre for Excellence in Strategic Talent Management has identified five career trends that have changed dramatically over the past few decades. These shifts are forcing organisations to change their approach to career development. A one-size-fits-all career path no longer exists. Instead, HR teams must provide frameworks and structures for people who want to craft their own journeys through professional life.

The Covid-19 pandemic is not only shaking up business thoroughly, it also has a high impact on reward management. In a series of 3 ‘Business Watcher’ videos, Professor Xavier Baeten explains how we need to (re)think about the key dimensions of total rewards, being pay, benefits and non-financial rewards. In order to turn that knowledge into action, he has developed – together with Hudson and Claeys & Engels – a downloadable Total Rewards Checklist.

The Corona virus has an enormous impact on our daily work and the way we work together. Most of us are no longer allowed to physically go to the office and are now full-time working from home. This is radically changing our HR policies with trust becoming a crucial factor. In this Business Watcher video, Human Resources Professor Dirk Buyens gives practical advice on how to address issues emerging from working at home.

In today’s world of work, careers are no longer a sequence of hierarchically ordered jobs, performed within one and the same company. Yet, for many people careers are still taking a very central role in their lives, providing them with a strong social identity and substantially influencing their overall happiness. Instead of radically abandoning career-thinking, individuals are instead changing their perceptions on how to conceptualise their professional lives, considering careers as continually evolving gatherings of work-related experiences for which every employee carries individual responsibility. In this white paper, we distinguish five evolutions in individual career development, all impacting the practice of career management.