At the recently held 2021 Reward Awards ceremony hosted by the South African Reward Association (SARA), Openserve won the Reward Project of the Year award while ABSA won the Remuneration Report award for the second consecutive year. 

Morag Phillips won the prestigious President’s Award. 

The annual rewards celebrate the companies and professionals who design total reward solutions that attract, retain, motivate, and engage employees in a way that makes a difference to their organisations.

Reward Project Award
The 2021 SARA Reward Project award recognised the team from Openserve for their Heroes Employee Recognition Project. The project recognises employees that go beyond the call of duty in providing excellent service to Openserve customers.

The process is employee-driven and administered via the Openserve Heroes portal, where individual employees are nominated weekly. Due to the basic setup of the portal, no management intervention is required, and there is little to no overhead in administering the system. Weekly and monthly winners receive a personal call from an Openserve Exco member congratulating them on their Hero status.

The annual process culminates in a virtual breakfast with the Exco and the monthly Hero winners. In the first cycle, the CEO announced a surprise gift of a weekend away with partners for all the monthly winners. There has been a healthy adoption rate among employees and key indirect business performance metrics all show pleasing improvements.

The other placed nominees of the 2021 SARA Reward Project of the Year award were Mr Price Group in second place for their Flexible Retirement Benefits implementation project, and Bridgestone South Africa for their Total Cost to Company migration project.

Remuneration Report Award
The winner of the 2021 SARA Remuneration Report of the Year award is ABSA. Goldfields received 2nd Place and Anglo American Platinum Limited received 3rd place for their submissions. 

This award recognises organisations for the alignment of their remuneration reporting and disclosure, against the key principles of the King IVTM governance guidelines which exemplify fair, responsible and transparent policy and practice.  Submissions were evaluated by a panel of independent and expert judges across all spheres of stakeholders. 

President’s Award
A special President's Award that honours outstanding achievement in the field of total reward was awarded to Morag Phillips from 21st Century.

Morag has served the South Africa Reward Association over an extended period. She continues to contribute to the value that the association creates for its members by chairing the Thought Leadership Committee, and previously the Conference committee and also makes herself available as a Mentor on the Mentorship programme.

She has written many articles and spoken at numerous conferences on HR and Reward matters and is viewed as an industry specialist and leader in her field.

Morag is an integral part of the leadership team that ensures SARA continuously innovates value adding services to members. Morag’s inner strength, inputs, and research have enabled the SARA Exco to optimise the diversity of its members.

The association is honoured to acknowledge Morag’s invaluable contribution to the profession, our community, country, and continent at large.

ENDS

MEDIA CONTACT: Rosa-Mari Le Roux, 060 995 6277, [email protected], www.atthatpoint.co.za  

For more information on SARA please visit:
Website: www.sara.co.za 
Twitter: @SA_reward
LinkedIn: South African Reward Association
Facebook: SARA – South African Reward Association

At the recently held 2020 Reward Awards ceremony hosted by the South African Reward Association (SARA), FNB won the Reward Project of the Year award while ABSA won the Remuneration Report award.

Yolanda Sedlmaier won the prestigious President’s Award.

The annual rewards celebrate the companies and professionals who design total reward solutions that attract, retain, motivate, and engage employees in a way that makes a difference to their organisations.

Reward Project Award
The 2020 SARA Reward Project award recognised the team from FNB that developed an Annual Salary Review (ASR) conversation guide for managers on the FNB App.

Research from Gartner (Corporate Leadership Council) shows that 70% of employees want information about reward from their managers, and that communication by managers is three times more likely to positively impact loyalty to both the manager and the organisation than if it were to come from HR.  The ASR conversation guide for managers is built into a section of the FNB Banking App that is only visible to employees, and offers an innovative way to provide personalised, contextual support for managers to have effective reward conversations.

In an environment where the majority of the workforce is working off-campus/off-site, the ASR Guide has been essential to provide managers with as much support as possible through the annual salary review process. ASR has enabled virtual management of the annual increase process, and resulted in an increase of 100% in active App users.
The other placed nominees of the 2020 SARA Reward Project of the Year award were Anglo Platinum in second place for their Team+ Performance Management and Reward project, and Standard Bank in third place for their COVID-19 Employee Support and Relief project.

Remuneration Report Award
The winner of the 2020 SARA Remuneration Report of the Year award is ABSA. Goldfields received 2nd Place and Vodacom received 3rd place for their submissions.

This award recognises organisations for the alignment of their remuneration reporting and disclosure, against the key principles of the King IVTM governance guidelines which exemplify fair, responsible and transparent policy and practice.  Submissions were evaluated by a panel of independent and expert judges across all spheres of stakeholders.

President’s Award
A special President's Award that honours outstanding achievement in the field of total reward was awarded to Yolanda Sedlmaier (Chartered Reward Specialist).

Yolanda has been involved in SARA’s Internship Programme since its inception in 2006, and she has been the Chair of the programme since 2010. Over the past 14 years, the programme has delivered an impressive 55 new total reward professionals into the industry through the active involvement of the committee and superb support from Sponsor and Host companies. Yolanda has worked tirelessly with her team of passionate and dedicated volunteers to enhance and improve the programme, on top of her demanding roles at Deloitte and more recently Mercer.

Yolanda has been described as a selfless leader who is passionate about talent development and thrives on seeing young graduates of the programme go on to lead successful, fulfilling careers. Her no-nonsense style, combined with her love and passion for mentoring graduates, has made her a highly respected total reward professional and deserving recipient of the 2020 award.

ENDS

MEDIA CONTACT: Rosa-Mari Le Roux, 060 995 6277, [email protected], www.atthatpoint.co.za  

For more information on SARA please visit:
Website: www.sara.co.za  
Twitter: @SA_reward
LinkedIn: South African Reward Association
Facebook: SARA – South African Reward Association