Coming soon · Book Profile
Pay People Right!: Breakthrough Reward Strategies to Create Great Companies
A practical guide showing how companies can align base pay, variable pay, recognition, and total rewards with business goals to create a win-win 'better workforce deal' that drives organizational success.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Pay People Right! reframes compensation as a powerful strategic communication tool rather than an administrative cost, arguing that pay is the 'accelerator pedal' for business success. Building on six universal reward principles and a four-component model of total rewards (individual growth, compelling future, total pay, and positive workplace), authors Zingheim and Schuster show leaders, HR professionals, and managers how to build a business case for changing rewards and then design integrated pay solutions that reward individual ongoing value with base pay and results with variable pay. Drawing on extensive consulting and research across Fortune 500 and emerging companies, the book tackles the toughest reward challenges—scarce talent, teams, sales forces, executives, mergers and acquisitions, and global operations—and offers a roadmap for making rewards work through involvement, communication, and continuous refinement. It is a must-read for anyone serious about using pay to gain and keep committed people who help make a company great.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A business leader, manager, HR or compensation professional who wants to use pay and rewards to attract, retain, and engage people and gain competitive advantage.
- The problem
- Existing pay practices are misaligned with the business and fail to communicate the right messages or reward the results the company needs. The reader feels frustrated and uncertain—pay is emotional, noisy, and hard to change, and they fear losing key talent or wasting reward dollars.
- The plan
- Develop a total reward strategy and build a clear business case for changing rewards.
- Align base pay to reward individual ongoing value and variable pay to reward results.
- Integrate all reward elements and extend the workforce's line of sight to business goals.
- Involve people in designing reward change and communicate continuously.
- Implement quickly, then refine rewards continuously to match changing business needs.
- The payoff
- The workforce becomes engaged stakeholders who share in and accelerate business success. · The company attracts and retains the talent it needs and becomes an employer of preference. · Pay communicates business direction clearly and creates a positive win-win partnership.
See our guide
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- Founder’s Pocket Guide_ Stock Options and Equity Compensation →
- Rewarding Excellence: Pay Strategies for the New Economy →
- Show Me the Money_ A Statistical Analysis of Commission-Based Compensation Models →
- Strategic Pay: Aligning Organizational Strategies and Pay Systems →
- The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits and Total Rewards →
Additional reading
- Human Resource Champions · David Ulrich
The preface references this as a landmark book in the effort to define HR core competencies and the role of HR as a strategic business partner.
- The Human Side of the Enterprise · Douglas McGregor
Mentioned in the preface as a key influence in shifting the perspective from 'personnel administration' to 'human resource management,' providing historical context for the evolution of the HR function.
- The Compensation Handbook, A State-of-the-Art Guide to Compensation and Design · Berger, L.A., and D.R. Berger, editors
This book provides a deep dive into the practical application of finance and accounting; a broader handbook like this one would provide context on the design elements (internal/external equity) that this book deliberately does not cover in detail.
- How to Be a Star at Work: 9 Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed · Robert E. Kelley
Referenced to support the idea that a key trait of high performers is their ability to leverage learning opportunities, which is a core tenet of the book's framework for excelling as a compensation professional.
- Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation · Tyler Cowen
Cited to highlight the increasing economic value of individuals whose skills are complementary to computers, underscoring the book's argument that 'soft skills' and strategic thinking are becoming critical for compensation professionals in a data-driven world.
- Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us · Daniel H. Pink
Cited as a contrasting viewpoint that questions the efficacy of financial incentives, highlighting the importance of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. This is relevant to the book's deep focus on designing effective incentive systems.
- Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market · Sarah Kaplan and Richard N. Foster
Referenced to illustrate the increasing pace of change and business complexity, which provides the context for why compensation professionals need to be more strategic and business-savvy.
- Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital · John W. Boudreau and Peter M. Ramstad
Listed as an additional resource to provide a deeper dive into the strategic management of human capital, which is a central theme of the handbook.
- Pay and organizational effectiveness: A psychological view · Lawler, E. E., III (1971)
This is cited as a foundational text that comprehensively applied psychological theories, particularly expectancy and equity theory, to understand how pay systems affect employee motivation and behavior.
- Economics, organization & management · Milgrom, P., & Roberts, J. (1992)
Serves as a key reference for the 'new economics of personnel,' particularly agency theory. The book uses its concepts to frame decisions about behavior- vs. outcome-based contracts and the challenges of incentive design.