The reward systems adopted by companies have changed greatly in the last five years. They have been upgraded to be competitive in retaining the best talent within the company. But no sooner did one think they had finally adjusted the realities of the market place have changed from seemingly never ending spree of prosperity to that of economic downturn. This calls for another round of changes in the reward systems of businesses.

So, now what happens? We've spent the last five years getting our reward systems current, competitive, and attractive to a scarce talent workforce. Things changed very quicklywell, quickly in terms of issues of human resources issues. Not from a business standpointbusiness fortunes can change rapidly and unexpectedly. It just took us too long to get geared up to deal with a scarce talent marketnow; we have some skills that are in short supply and others that are readily available. Tough problem to solve and still deal with the traditional issues of "equity" and "fairness".

We need to get back to some basics about pay design and management. Most are at the foundations of good pay management, but we seemed to throw many of them away when talent got scarce. Perhaps this is a good time to look at them and get a few "tips" as we approach 2002.

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