To highlight the impact total rewards professionals have on organizations, WorldatWork has announced a new initiative: Total Rewards Professionals Week. From May 21-25, this celebration will honor the contributions of total rewards professionals — those who specialize in the design and implementation of compensation, benefits and work-life programs. Special recognition will be given during the WorldatWork 2012 Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition, the largest annual gathering of compensation and benefits professionals from around the world, May 21-23 in Orlando, Florida.

“Total rewards professionals impact the lives of millions of employees,” said Anne C. Ruddy, president and CEO, WorldatWork. “In the U.S. alone there are 119,000 compensation and benefits specialists who must deploy a spectrum of rewards to maintain an engaged and productive workforce at an affordable cost in an increasingly regulated environment. It is time to honor their work.”

Professionals in total rewards are responsible for the design and implementation of pay and benefits programs that combined represent a major portion of companies’ costs. In the United States alone, wage and salary payments are more than $6.8 trillion — almost half of the gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Nearly $2.6 trillion is spent on health care annually, representing about 1/6 of the total U.S. gross domestic product.

Organizations are encouraged to mark Total Rewards Professionals Week by recognizing the many ways in which total rewards professionals attract, motivate, and retain the talent that organizations need to be successful. To assist in this effort, WorldatWork has developed several ready-to-use tools that rewards practitioners can use, including slide presentations, videos, posters, intranet announcements, and multimedia presentations.

To find out more about Total Rewards Professionals Week, visit www.worldatwork.org(information will be posted by May 1).