The certificate is ideal for individuals working to improve their organization’s compensation system so that it functions more effectively and aligns with their organization’s strategic, financial, and institutional objectives.
Course Content
- Recognize and apply elements of the total rewards framework
- Identify how to effectively communicate and implement a compensation plan
- Determine ways to align the compensation strategy to the talent strategy
- Define performance in a contextually appropriate manner
- Recognize differences within the workforce that either facilitate pay for performance or make pay for performance more challenging
- Identify opportunities to improve pay-for-performance practices that are counterproductive or misaligned with organizations’ needs
- Choose pay-for-performance elements to attract and retain key talent and superstars
- Critically assess the improvements in attraction, retention, productivity, engagement and motivation associated with pay-for-performance systems
Course Listings
Students who successfully complete all four courses in this certificate program receive a Compensation and Benefits Certificate from Cornell University’s ILR School.
The conversation around employee pay has changed over the years from one of base salaries, bonuses, and cash compensation, to a “total rewards” approach that seeks the right blend of monetary and non-monetary elements that will engage each employee while generating valuable business results.
Cornell University ILR School faculty Linda Barrington and Diane Burton are the thought leaders behind Cornell's prestigious Institute for Compensation Studies. This team of authors offers a learning experience that applies evidence-based, social science approaches to the field of compensation. This course will equip you with the tools and insights needed to apply a “total rewards” view to compensation that aligns with your organization's strategic goals and operational realities.
You'll start by exploring some of the philosophical concepts underpinning pay structures. You'll look at the decisions your organization will need to make before creating a pay structure. After you examine the philosophical and practical considerations, you'll see how to develop a pay structure. Professor Tae-Youn Park leads you through the process of building a pay structure for your organization, providing a step-by-step framework that you can bring back to your organization. He then gives you hands-on experience with developing a pay structure that matches both your organization's needs and its values. Along the way, you will discover how to collect, choose, and use market pay data.
This course introduces the idea of benchmarking, or comparing your salaries to those of your competitors. Benchmarking is one of several factors that organizations use to determine employee pay. Additional factors include the organization's compensation philosophy, ways beyond salary that employees are compensated, and the organization's budget. Organizations need to strike the right balance of paying enough to attract and retain quality employees but not paying more they can afford.
In this course, you will explore the different salary surveys used in benchmarking analysis and how to decide what surveys are best for your organization. You will also examine strategies for reviewing and analyzing those surveys. Finally, you will consider how to use the results of your analysis to adjust salary structures and how to communicate the results of your analysis to the organization.
The breadth, depth, and variation of benefit programs gives each employer the opportunity to design their benefit strategy and offerings to attract and retain their optimal employee workforce. The nation's top employers consider their employee benefits and workplace experiences to be key parts of their employment brand and overall human resources strategy.
Throughout this course, you will be exposed to the major employee benefit programs and workplace experiences offered by American employers. You will explore the tremendous variation in how these programs are offered, both in terms of the programs themselves and the design features of each program.
Professional Programs
Cornell ILR Professional Workshops, Courses, and Training
- K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability
- Human Capital Development
- Institute for Compensation Studies™
- Institute for Workplace Studies
- Labor and Employment Law Program
- Masters of Professional Studies Program
- Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution
- Smithers Institute
- Worker Institute
To learn more about Cornell's ILR programs, visit Professional Programs.