Total Reward Statements
Information on the key dates are for updating TRS, tips and resources on how to communicate TRS to staff and a really handy timeline of actions.
What are Total Reward Statements?
Introduced across the NHS in 2014, Total Reward Statements (TRS) are developed and delivered by NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA), in partnership with the NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR). They are designed to help improve communication with employees, to help them understand and appreciate their overall reward package for working in the NHS and for your organisation. They also highlight the value of their employer and NHS pension benefits in one place.
What is shown on Total Reward Statements?
A TRS is a personalised summary that shows employees their reward package, including:
- basic pay
- allowances
- pension benefits (for NHS Pension Scheme members.
If your organisation uses ESR you can add information about your local benefits for your employees to see on their TRS. This is a useful tool to bring all your rewards together in one place to highlight to staff the benefits of working for your organisation. We've developed a local benefits page checklist to help you make the most out of the local benefits page of TRS.
Download the TRS checklist. (Word)
Please note: Information provided to members with practitioner status will be based on the last certificated final earnings (typically up to 31 March).
How are Total Reward Statements accessed?
TRS are accessed online via the employee-facing TRS portal, and via ESR employee self-service for organisations that use the facility.
For organisations who do not use ESR, direction bodies, and smaller NHS organisations, NHS Pension Scheme members are able to view their pension benefits via annual benefit statements (ABS), through the GOV.UK Verify. ABS do not include employment or local benefit information, as this information is supplied by ESR.
You can find out which statements staff can access by visiting the employer section of the NHS BSA TRS website.
Why use TRS?
Keeping TRS up to date with your organisation’s reward offering for staff can help with workforce priorities such as recruitment and retention. It provides employees with a personalised summary of their total reward package (the benefits that come with working for your organisation) including pension benefits and salary, all in one place.
When are they updated?
TRS is updated at certain times throughout the year, so we have developed a timeline poster that includes the key deadlines you need to know so you can plan and keep track of TRS actions as well as when to communicate to staff.
Key actions for employers
- Make sure your contact details are always kept up to date to receive notifications on the availability of statements. You can do this by completing the pensions online administrator amendment form or you can email NHS BSA quoting your EA code. Also, sign up to our NHS Workforce bulletin so you don’t miss any of the TRS communications.
- Use the task list created by NHS BSA to prepare your data for TRS. It will help you to submit better quality data to NHS BSA to produce accurate statements for your employees and can also decrease the request for manual calculations of pension estimates for your staff as you can redirect them to their TRS.
- Remind and encourage your staff to access and save their existing TRS as old statements cannot be viewed once the new ones are available.
- Update your local benefits page by the end of July so it can be communicated alongside the new TRS. Your local benefits page showcases all the benefits and rewards you offer locally to your staff. It can strengthen the impact on engagement with employees to promote non-financial benefits. Use our checklist which includes handy hints on what to include in your local benefits page. This is available to organisations who use ESR.
Mid-year TRS refresh
NHS BSA carries out a mid-year refresh to improve the quality of the information provided in TRS. NHS BSA produces a mid-year set of statements by re-running the pension calculations to capture the cleansed and updated data. The refreshed statements are generally available in December each year and will include any updates or changes to data made since the last update.
Communications
TRS helps staff see their total reward offer and its important to communicate it effectively. We encourage you to start thinking about TRS communication strategy as early as possible and include in your overall organisational communication plan. You can use resources developed by us and NHS BSA along with some good practice examples to support your communications.
- Use NHS BSA’s employer toolkit to support your communication as you will find handy promotional material which can be used to communicate and promote TRS.
- You can use our reward communications guide to plan and communicate your TRS and the reward package your organisation offers to staff. The guide includes a useful template communications plan and checklist to help you build your communications strategy.
Use our TRS posters to let your staff know statements have been updated and can be viewed online. The posters are provided in Word so they are fully editable and can feature your logo. All the posters are available in full colour and black and white options.
Colour TRS posters
Black and white posters
Really printer friendly version
