A recent report just released by Ceridian confirms the belief when it comes to driving engagement, one size does not fit all of the generations; Moreover, it offers some valuable advice to leaders who want to engage and retain their top talent by focusing on job rewards, performance feedback, and job motivation.

Conducted by Harris/Decima, Ceridian's Pulse of Talent Survey revealed that employers risk costly disengagement and high turnover, if they fail to address job rewards and other key drivers. Ceridian delivers cloud-based technology to address payroll and other functions.

According to this study, it is "Job Rewards", receiving monetary or non-monetary compensation for a job well done, that is the most important engagement driver for the polled employees as a group.

In fact, 47 percent ranked job rewards first, above job recognition (42 percent) and job motivation (11 percent). Once employees are satisfied their pay is fair, then employees want additional rewards, such as comp time off, providing state-of-the art technology, or free meals.

However, it is also vitally important that the type of reward be aligned with what the specific employees value. In other words, "they must tailor reward and recognition programs to account for generational differences, individual preferences, and technological innovation".

In addition, an impressive 60 percent of respondents' companies are currently offering non-monetary rewards to their employees.  The most popular of these non-monetary rewards are free personal days off, free food/meals, and event tickets (shows, sporting events, concerts etc.).

Generation Y (Millennials) had the largest percentage with 70 percent saying they would like to see their company offer non-monetary rewards.

Communication between employer and employee, especially important in performance feedback, is critical to ensuring job satisfaction and employee retention. Rather than formal performance reviews, held once a year, the focus should be on regular and ongoing performance feedback. During these exchanges, leaders must effectively manage their workers' career expectations and aspirations.

To ensure that their employees remain committed to their job and their overall career, employers need to understand what makes a job worthwhile.

Generally, the main drivers of job motivation are interesting work (39 percent), followed by autonomy (32 percent), and a good salary (31 percent).  For Gen Y and Boomers, the interesting work comes first. For Gen X, making a good pay/good salary comes first then they highly value good job benefits.

Overall, the most popular factors for making the job more rewarding were the options to work flexible hours, to get more training and opportunities, the option to work at home (flex place), and having opportunities to take on larger tasks. Gen Y is more likely to want the opportunity to take on more responsibility at work; Gen X would find flexible hours more rewarding; Boomers find training opportunities and flexible hours more rewarding.

This study nails the specific offerings that today's employees are looking for. The consequences of failure are high; employers will risk losing top talent. Rather than taking the chance of losing their talent, wise employers will remain flexible and evolve their best practices in these areas to meet their employees' wants and needs.

© Copyright 1998-2013 by The Herman Group of Companies, Inc., all rights reserved.  From 'The Herman Trend Alert,' by Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurist. (800) 227-3566 or www.hermangroup.com

The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group of Companies, Inc. Reprinted with permission.