Vol. 6 No. 2 (2026): April
Open Access
Peer Reviewed

SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW: THE EFFECT OF TOTAL REWARD SYSTEM ON EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION AND PERFORMANCE

Authors

Kevin Ghulaman Silmi , Sopiah , Arief Noviarakhman Zagladi

Published:

2026-04-28

Downloads

Abstract

This study systematically reviews 64 articles exploring the impact of total reward systems on job satisfaction and employee performance. Utilizing a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach based on the PRISMA methodology, the research examines the effectiveness of both financial and non-financial compensation in enhancing productivity and motivation. Articles were sourced from prominent scientific databases using keywords such as "total reward," "job satisfaction," and "employee performance." Findings indicate a positive correlation between total rewards and job satisfaction, although effectiveness varies by industry and reward type. Identified research gaps include the long-term impact of non-financial rewards and the role of workplace culture in reward effectiveness. These findings provide valuable insights for academics and practitioners aiming to optimize reward systems.

Keywords:

total reward job satisfaction employee performance Systematic Literature Review (SLR) PRISMA HRM

References

Aboobaker, N. (2020). Workplace spirituality and employee loyalty: An empirical investigation among millennials in India. Journal of Asia Business Studies. https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-03-2018-0089

Ali, S. (2021). Motivation and job satisfaction among medical and dental college faculty in Pakistan amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Work. https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-213483

Altassan, M.A. (2024). Exploring non-financial incentives for employee motivation in small and medium enterprises in Saudi Arabia. Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development. https://doi.org/10.24294/jipd.v8i8.3356

Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2019). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice (14th ed.).

Ateeq, A. (2023). Impact of employee loyalty on job performance: Mediating role of job satisfaction on the example of Zain company, Bahrain. Problems and Perspectives in Management. https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.21(2).2023.44

Auer, E.M. (2021). Pay for performance, satisfaction and retention in longitudinal crowdsourced research. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245460

Bakar, N.A. (2022). The relationship between organizational support, employee engagement, and employee performance: A review of the literature. Journal of Human Resources Management Research. https://doi.org/10.5171/2022.631975

Bang, S.R. (2022). Human resource practices for corporate social responsibility: Evidence from Korean firms. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.893243

Calvo, B.G.S. (2019). From prevention of occupational risk to workplace health promotion: Progress in collective bargaining. Revista del Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social.

Cappelli, P. (2024). HR's new role. Harvard Business Review.

Chi, H., Vu, T. V., & Nguyen, H. V. (2023). How financial and non–financial rewards moderate the relationships between transformational leadership, job satisfaction, and job performance. Cogent Business & Management, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2023.2173850

Coetzee, M. (2021). Redefining the psychological contract in the digital era: Issues for research and practice. Redefining the Psychological Contract in the Digital Era: Issues for Research and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63864-1

de Gieter, S., et al. (2022). Financial vs. non-financial rewards: Effects on motivation across cultures. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 33(4), 659–682. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2021.1895423

Dutta, T. (2021). Employee loyalty: Measurement and validation. Global Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/0972150921990809

Elrayah, M., & Semlali, Y. (2023). Sustainable total reward strategies for talented employees' sustainable performance, satisfaction, and motivation. Sustainability, 15(2), 1605. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1605

Falcone, A. (2022). Strategies for retaining and sustaining the academic librarian workforce in times of crises. Journal of Library Administration. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2022.2057132

Ford, R.C. (2023). Giving to get loyalty: How organizations signal their loyalty to employees. Organizational Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2022.100956

Gafur, M. (2022). Employee engagement and performance: The role of motivational factors. International Journal of Business Excellence. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBEX.2022.10009876

Garg, S. (2020). HR practice salience: Explaining variance in employee reactions to HR practices. International Journal of Human Resource Management. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2020.1792533

Gupta, N. (2022). Impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown to sustain Employee Performance Management Systems in NCR Corporates. ECS Transactions. https://doi.org/10.1149/10701.2337ecst

Gupta, N., & Shaw, J. D. (2021). Pay fairness and employee outcomes: Explanations and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review, 31(1), 100747. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2020.100747

Gupte, T.S. (2020). A study on employee retention strategies adopted by ICICI bank. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research.

Haider, M., Aamir, A., & Hamid, A. A. (2015). A literature analysis on the importance of non-financial rewards for employees' job satisfaction. Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences, 8(2). http://ajss.abasyn.edu.pk/admineditor/papers/V8I2-10.pdf

Hamzah, N. M., & Matkhairuddin, S. (2023). Impact of non-financial rewards on employees’ job satisfaction. Journal of Emerging Advances in Economics and Management, 3(2), 13–22. https://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/JeA/article/download/23628/13651

Kankaew, K. (2023). Strategic human resource management in the hospitality industry: A digitalized economic paradigm. Strategic Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry: A Digitalized Economic Paradigm. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-7494-5

Laakso, L. (2012). Case Study: The impact of financial and non-financial rewards on employee motivation. https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/42808/Laakso_Lotta.pdf

Lintang, R. (2023). Employee retention improvement of pulp and paper companies in Indonesia. WSEAS Transactions on Business and Economics. https://doi.org/10.37394/23207.2023.20.171

Madden, L., Mathias, B. D., & Madden, T. M. (2023). Total rewards and employee retention: A meta-analytic examination. Journal of Management, 49(2), 327–355. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221094089

Malik, N. (2023). Unlocking employee job accomplishment: The role of human resource management initiatives with the contingent impact of compensation and benefits. Journal of Modern Project Management. https://doi.org/10.19255/JMPM03107

Mihajlović, I. (2021). Key drivers of internal market changes and innovative tools towards an efficient business climate. WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control. https://doi.org/10.37394/23203.2021.16.19

Mura, L. (2019). Position of employee benefits in remuneration structure. Transformations in Business and Economics.

Naidu, K.V. (2023). Interplay of artificial intelligence and the metaverse in HR. The Business of the Metaverse: How to Maintain the Human Element Within This New Business Reality. https://doi.org/10.4324/b23404-12

Ozolina, J. (2024). From different angles to shared insights: Economist and psychologist accord on employee motivation. Proceedings of World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, WMSCI. https://doi.org/10.54808/WMSCI2024.01.155

Pandey, P. (2023). The design and effect of short-term incentive schemes on employee motivation. AIP Conference Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0111023

Parashar, B. (2020). Contemporary issues of employer branding in India. Innovations and Challenges in Human Resource Management for HR4.0.

Richmond, D. (2020). Motivations and barriers for seasonal cAMP employment. Journal of Youth Development. https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2020.822

Ridwan, S., & Anik, H. (2020). The effect of organizational culture, non-financial compensation and job satisfaction on organizational commitment. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ac9d/8e7d1574ccd72eabe494b93df9004ee70572.pdf

Rizki, M.A. (2020). Work loyalty: Organizational commitment or compulsion. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research.

Roztocki, N. (2022). Enterprise systems implementation in the public sector: Importance of employee motivation. 28th Americas Conference on Information Systems, AMCIS 2022.

Saeed, B.B. (2019). Promoting employee's proenvironmental behavior through green human resource management practices. Journal of Cleaner Production, 241, 118245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118245

Sakaya, A. J. (2019). The supremacy of financial and non-financial rewards towards employees' job satisfaction in Tanzania. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340436601

Seman, K., & Suhaimi, S. A. (2017). The relationship between financial and non-financial rewards on employee's job satisfaction at manufacturing industries in Malaysia. https://www.academia.edu/download/78949832/IJAFB-2017-05-09-02.pdf

Subawa, N.S. (2024). The effect of new work policies during COVID-19 on employee performance and loyalty in Jepun Kuta Bali Hotel. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53998-5_42

Supriyanto, A. S., & Ekowati, V. M. (2021). Perceived fairness of rewards and its impact on employee performance and satisfaction. Journal of Management Development, 40(1), 23–39.

Tausif, M. (2012). Influence of non-financial rewards on job satisfaction: A case study of educational sector of Pakistan. SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=2124536

Turgut, M. (2023). Investigation of grief and posttraumatic growth related to patient loss in pediatric intensive care nurses: A cross-sectional study. BMC Palliative Care. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-023-01316-z

Urbański, F. (2019). Employees motivation in CSR projects: Case study of WrOpenUp. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics and Governance. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00440-8_16

Vasumathi, A. (2021). Employee loyalty on organisational success – an empirical study. International Journal of Services and Operations Management. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSOM.2021.119803

Winter, E.A. (2021). Employee motivation systems in pharmacies in Japan and China. Journal of Advanced Pharmacy Education and Research. https://doi.org/10.51847/qUXGQmmQm5

Wu, T. (2022). A new clustering algorithm with preference adjustment cost to reduce the cooperation complexity in large-scale group decision making. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMC.2021.3120809

Yang, W. (2021). Impact of HRM practices on employee turnover intentions through organizational climate: A social identity perspective. International Journal of eBusiness and eGovernment Studies. https://doi.org/10.34109/ijebeg.202113215

Yekimov, S. (2023). Ways to increase the productivity of cashiers in a banking institution. E3S Web of Conferences. https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202342008017

Yousaf, S., Latif, M., Aslam, S., & Saddiqui, A. (2014). Impact of financial and non-financial rewards on employee motivation. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 21(10), 1776–1786. https://doi.org/10.5829/IDOSI.MEJSR.2014.21.10.21756

Zafar, M. (2021). Impact of compensation practices on employee job performance: An empirical study. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49889-4_26

Zainal, N.S.B. (2022). Employee retention in the service industry in Malaysia. Frontiers in Sociology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.928951

Zhu, Y. (2021). Application of a computerized decision support system to develop care strategies for elderly hemodialysis patients. Journal of Healthcare Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5060484

Zhu, Y. (2024). Supportive supervisor behavior and helping behaviors in the hotel sector: Assessing the mediating effect of employee engagement and moderating influence of perceived organizational obstruction. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04326-5

Author Biographies

Kevin Ghulaman Silmi, Universitas Negeri Malang

Author Origin : Indonesia

Sopiah, Universitas Negeri Malang

Author Origin : Indonesia

Arief Noviarakhman Zagladi, Universitas Negeri Malang

Author Origin : Indonesia

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

How to Cite

Kevin Ghulaman Silmi, Sopiah, & Arief Noviarakhman Zagladi. (2026). SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW: THE EFFECT OF TOTAL REWARD SYSTEM ON EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION AND PERFORMANCE. International Journal of Economic, Business, Accounting, Agriculture Management and Sharia Administration (IJEBAS), 6(2), 455–465. Retrieved from https://radjapublika.com/index.php/IJEBAS/article/view/5447