Although the unemployment number remains high, employers continue to struggle with recruiting and retaining employees with critical skills, and this is largely due to a mismatch in rewards offered by employers and those desired by employees, says Laura Sejen, global practice leader, rewards at Towers Watson, a global professional services company in New York City.

Based on a new study by Towers Watson, the top reward desired by employees is a competitive base salary. Of course, other benefits certainly carry value, much of the success of recruiting and retention comes down to competitive pay.

"With all the other changes that have been going on in the workplace, employees are looking to that competitive base pay as something that's a stable form of reward within their total rewards portfolio," Sejen says. "If offered a comparable job from a different employer for more pay, employees would be inclined to go."