Rewards
While we are focused on creating an environment where you can belong, connect and grow, we also appreciate that you expect to be paid fairly and receive good benefits as part of your employment at KBR. We aim to offer competitive and affordable rewards across the world, and continually benchmark against our peers to achieve this. With the rising cost of living and economic uncertainty in many markets, there is a natural tension between wanting to reward our employees well while having to price competitively to win business.
In 2023, in certain markets where inflation had stayed ahead of our salary growth, we were able to award some midyear increases, focusing particularly on lower-paid employees for whom the cost of living squeeze was greatest. It is therefore encouraging to see that two thirds of employees feel we pay fairly (increased from 60% in 2021), but we will continue to monitor the market and discuss price increases with customers as we would like this figure to be much higher. We are also aiming to improve our overall Reward Index score, which was 67% this year, the lowest of all areas in the survey based on the statements below.
We also reviewed responses to the question about pay fairness according to different demographic groups as we continually monitor pay equity through our salary review processes. To enable us to do this, we need your help ensuring that your demographic data is complete and up to date in Workday, so please take a moment to log in and review your personal information every year.
When it comes to benefits, these vary significantly based on geography, as market trends, regulatory environments and government programs differ around the world. Our global benchmarking shows we compete well with other large employers in each local market, but we are continually scanning the horizon to see how we can improve our offerings to you. It is good to see the uplift in response to the statement about special and unique benefits, which rose 7% this year. Overall there were 375 comments about how we can improve our benefits, and 246 positive comments about our offering, and a representative sample of these are shown below.
“In recent years I'm seeing a lot of improvement in company communications and benefits that has made a very positive improvement.”
“The company has excellent benefits and helps tremendously with trying to help employees keep a work-life balance.”
“Benefits are good and continuing to get better (401k match, parental leave, AWW/hybrid schedule, etc.).”
“Some of the benefits could be improved (health insurance, bonus structure).”
“Employee benefits are not so great compared to other organizations in this country.”
“It's really a great place to work in terms of culture and environment but how about being an employer of choice and providing competitive benefits?”
We will continue to identify new opportunities to expand our benefits range, such as Next-gen Flex Work, which we are piloting in the U.S. This comprises two programs — Flex Work (eligible employees can work anywhere in the world for up to four weeks) and Sabbatical Leave (eligible employees can take up to three months’ unpaid leave to truly disconnect), and we hope to expand these programs to new markets once the pilot has concluded.
