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The Total Rewards Playbook: How to Build a Compensation and Benefits System That Attracts, Retains, and Motivates
Paperback
Series: Playbook
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 7 2026
Pages: 550
Weight: 1.60
Height: 1.23 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
500+ Total Rewards students trained. 10+ cohorts. Former Total Rewards Lead at Wargaming (3,000 employees, 3 countries). Built the HR system behind a $1.2B unicorn. This system works.
Here's the uncomfortable truth about compensation and benefits: you're probably overpaying some people and underpaying others - and you have no data to prove either way. Your best performers quietly update their LinkedIn profiles while your mediocre employees stay forever because the market doesn't want them either. Your CEO asks why turnover is up, and you mumble something about competitive market conditions because you don't have a dashboard that shows the real answer.
When you don't have a system? Top talent leaves, managers make salary decisions by gut, and you spend three times more on benefits than competitors - with 13% less satisfaction. When you do? Every pay decision is defensible with data, offer acceptance jumps, and benefits costs drop because you stop paying for things nobody uses.
This book gives you the exact system I've built at Wargaming, refined at Preply, and taught to 500+ students across 10+ cohorts over 7 years.
Here's what's inside:
- The Total Rewards Architecture - the six-component model that replaces siloed HR programs with one integrated system.
- The Strategy-to-Rewards Bridge - connect TR directly to business goals with an eight-section template and twelve-week timeline.
- The Grading System - build grades and pay bands from scratch without expensive consultants.
- The Market Data Playbook - conduct surveys, blend data from multiple providers, and position pay by strategy, not guesswork.
- The Cafeteria Plan Blueprint - design flexible benefits. The Metinvest case: 5 fixed packages to 1 flexible plan, satisfaction up from 36% to 58%, costs down.
- The Merit Matrix - connect pay increases to performance and compa-ratio. Best people get biggest raises.
- The Recognition ROI Calculator - programs that cost 0.5-3% of payroll with measurable returns.
- The EVP-to-Brand Pipeline - build an employer brand that attracts without competing on salary alone.
- The Change Playbook - why 60% of TR projects fail and the framework that prevents it.
- The AI Accelerator - seven use cases from salary benchmarking to personalized benefits, with ready prompts.
- 55+ downloadable templates - Compa-Ratio Dashboard, Bonus Pool Calculator, Sales Commission Modeler, Executive Compensation Benchmarking Matrix, TR Budget Template, Cafeteria Plan Points Calculator, EVP Research Questionnaire, and 48 more - ready to use today.
A compensation consultant costs $30,000+. The WorldatWork Handbook costs $80 and reads like a textbook. This book gives you the same frameworks, plus 55 ready-to-use tools, for less than lunch.
Every framework tested across 500+ companies through my students. Every tool refined through 10+ cohorts. Every case study real - from Metinvest's metallurgical plants to Preply's path to unicorn status.
Stop guessing what to pay people. Build a system.
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