Overview
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This Specialization gives you a practical foundation in employee compensation, incentive pay, benefits, and total rewards. You’ll learn how to build pay structures, choose rewards for different employees and workplaces, evaluate whether compensation programs are working, and recommend improvements. By the end, you’ll be prepared to make fair, competitive, and informed decisions that support both employees and organizational goals.
Syllabus
- Course 1: Employee Compensation Strategy and Pay Structures
- Course 2: Performance-Based Pay and Incentive Plan Design
- Course 3: Employee Benefits and Total Rewards Management
Courses
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This course helps you understand the benefits employees receive at work and why those benefits matter. You’ll learn about health insurance, retirement plans, paid leave, and other benefits that can make a job more attractive and support employees throughout their careers. You’ll also discover how benefits fit into the bigger picture of what employees receive in return for their work. This includes pay, recognition, opportunities to grow, and support for life outside of work. Along the way, you’ll learn about the laws employers must follow and the choices they make when deciding what to offer. Through practical examples, you’ll consider questions HR professionals face every day. What benefits do employees value most? How can an employer tell whether a program is working? What should change when employees’ needs or the organization’s goals change? Whether you’re new to HR or looking to strengthen your existing skills, this course will give you a clear, practical way to review employee benefits and recommend improvements that help employees feel supported and want to stay.
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This course helps you understand how organizations decide what to pay employees and how those decisions affect hiring, performance, and retention. You’ll explore the different forms of compensation, including wages, salaries, incentives, benefits, and non-financial rewards. You’ll also learn how employment laws, labor market conditions, business goals, and employee expectations influence pay decisions. Practical examples will show you how to compare pay strategies, examine the work involved in a job, and create clear job descriptions and requirements. As you move through the course, you’ll discover how organizations compare jobs, use salary survey data, and group positions into pay grades and salary ranges. You’ll also learn how to spot common problems, such as employees being paid inconsistently or experienced employees earning less than new hires. Whether you’re new to HR or want a clearer understanding of compensation, this course will give you a practical foundation for making pay decisions that are fair, competitive, and easier to explain.
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This course helps you understand how employers connect pay to employee performance. You’ll learn the differences between base pay, bonuses, commissions, and other incentives, along with how each can influence employee choices and results. You’ll explore what motivates people at work and how to choose incentives for individuals, teams, and entire organizations. You’ll also learn how employers adapt pay for different jobs, career stages, and work settings, including unionized, remote, and international workplaces. Practical examples will help you judge whether a pay program is working by looking at costs, turnover, productivity, employee feedback, and fairness. You’ll also examine executive pay and the responsibilities organizations have when setting and explaining it. Whether you’re new to HR or want to better understand performance-based pay, this course will help you choose appropriate rewards, avoid common problems, and recommend improvements. You’ll finish with a clearer sense of how to create pay programs that encourage the right results while remaining fair, practical, and sustainable.
Taught by
Christina Chung