Presentation of the award, the association's highest honor, was made earlier this week at the WorldatWork Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition in Anaheim, California.

According to WorldatWork, Zingheim and Schuster have helped modernize the way companies developed compensation plans by popularizing variable pay and total compensation strategies to mainstream audiences in the early 1990s.

Together they are credited for the widespread understanding of the practical use of variable pay to accelerate business performance beginning with their 1992 book, The New Pay: Linking Employee and Organizational Performance. This work contributed significantly to modernization of compensation programs, demonstrating to leaders in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and to the general public how the elements of compensation -- including variable pay, base pay, performance management, measures and goals, and benefits -- can be used to support business goals.

In a follow-up book, Pay People Right! Breakthrough Reward Strategies to Create Great Companies, published in 2000, Zingheim and Schuster pose a total rewards model linked to business success and show how total pay, individual growth, a compelling future, and a positive workplace can collectively create an employee value proposition to attract, motivate, retain, and develop high-performing talent. The book explains total rewards in practical and straightforward terms and provides usable solutions and tools.

Zingheim and Schuster have also co-authored many articles on the role of rewards in helping organizations become more successful. According to WorldatWork, their writing, speeches, and consulting work have influenced major corporations around the world to design pay programs aligned with a total rewards strategy, resulting in the advancement of the human resources field and significantly contributing to the body of knowledge.