Workscape Named "Hot Vendor" in The Ventana Research Value Index: Total Compensation Management 2009

MARLBOROUGH, MA--(Marketwire - July 6, 2009) - Workscape, Inc., a leading provider of outsourced benefits and talent management solutions, today announced its compensation management solution, Workscape Compensation Planner, and the company has earned top scores and 'Hot Vendor' rating in The Ventana Research Value Index for Total Compensation Management. Among the ranked vendors, Workscape topped the product usability, product reliability and product manageability categories.

Compensation management is a key activity for mitigating corporate risk while supporting workforce performance and talent management processes. Determining and providing the right compensation for employees -- as well as tying compensation to performance -- is critical attracting and retaining top performers and ensuring maximum productivity.

According to Ventana Research, two-thirds of end-user organizations in their benchmark research said that having a total compensation management system -- rather than piecemeal approach -- is important; however, only 40 percent said they were confident or very confident that their organization currently manages compensation processes effectively. These results are consistent with other recent compensation research, in which 34% of respondents stated their lack of an automated compensation management solution meant days or weeks would be needed to put together documentation supporting each employee's compensation plan.

Workscape Compensation Planner enables customers to leverage a single, comprehensive Web-based platform to plan salaries and short- and long-term incentives in a choice of languages and currencies. The company's powerful, configurable solution is unrivaled in its ability to accommodate regional or global differences in compensation plans without compromising strict corporate control.

Workscape Compensation Planner took the top position in product usability, product manageability and product reliability. The usability category's evaluation criteria included the extent to which the product provides the support needed by each of the functional roles involved in enabling total compensation management, i.e., for executives, managers/directors, business and HR analysts, and operations personnel. This category scored vendors on how much work the vendor has put into the human interface aspects of usability.

Manageability evaluated how the products met business and IT needs for installation, deployment and administration. Included in this category were how sophisticated the security provisions are with the respect to user identity and role and access; how effective the data security provided by the application is; auditing and compliance support; and what investments are required in licensing or subscription and maintenance.

Workscape also earned top marks in the product reliability category, which evaluated products' ability to deliver the performance and scalability required. Also included in this category were product's ability to support mobile and remote workers, and their depth of development and customization capabilities.

Mark Smith, CEO and Executive Vice President of Research of Ventana Research commented, "Ventana Research believes that an investment in total compensation management is a strategic step towards improving workforce performance as also found in our benchmark research. Total compensation management is maturing and is poised to become a powerful component of workforce performance management. Our Value Index is a practical framework for RFPs and a structure to use when evaluating vendors for this critical process and application. We congratulate Workscape for going through the detailed company and product assessment and being selected as a 'Hot Vendor' in the Value Index for Total Compensation Management."

Workscape CEO Tim Clifford, said, "Intense regulatory requirements, coupled with the increasing need to consolidate disparate processes and systems onto one reliable enterprise solution, has made Workscape Compensation Planner an integral part of best practice talent management. Since the company's inception more than a decade ago, Workscape has been continually enhancing the functionality and usability of our leading compensation planning solutions. This is validated by the extremely high satisfaction ratings we receive from our clients as well as through the impartial and critical evaluations of organizations such as Ventana Research. We're honored to have earned such impressive scores in this company and product research and look forward to driving innovation in this field for years to come."

Copies of the Executive Summary Report of the Value Index for Total Compensation Management can be downloaded at http://www.ventanaresearch.com/tcmvalueindex

About Workscape

Workscape is unique in its ability and demonstrated domain expertise in addressing the talent management, benefits administration and employee communication challenges of hundreds of organizations and millions of workers across the country and across the globe. For the past decade, Workscape has been delivering Web-based software and services that are proven to help organizations reduce healthcare costs, improve adherence to compensation budgets and ensure alignment between employee activities and corporate goals. As a result, our employee-centric approach has consistently helped organizations to achieve the highest return on their greatest workforce expenditures: healthcare benefits and employee compensation. For more information about Workscape, visit www.workscape.com or call 888-605-9620.