Anisha Archary, the Human Resources Director of Old Mutual Emerging Markets, published an excellent blog post over the weekend that describes her organization's view of total rewards. It's an expansive, comprehensive view that other employers should take note of.

In her post, she outlines a broad idea of how to define total compensation. Total compensation should be, in her words:

a multi-dimensional employee value proposition, which includes culture, leadership development, talent management, community work and an opportunity to develop a career. For us, benefits are more than monetary reward. We know that money is important to employees, but also understand that people work for more than money.

In other words, cash compensation and traditional benefits are of course extremely important, but there are many other aspects of the overall workplace experience that are critical for employee engagement and retention.