Total Rewards expands "compensation" well beyond the paycheck — covering the full system of benefits, recognition, and employee experience that organizations use to attract, motivate, and keep their people.
What D355 covers
The course develops the ability to design compensation and rewards systems that attract, motivate, and retain employees while aligning with organizational strategy. Students learn to balance internal fairness (pay equity within the organization) with external competitiveness (pay relative to the labor market).
The D355 performance assessment
A typical D355 performance assessment requires you to design a total rewards package for a given organization, explicitly addressing both internal fairness and external market competitiveness in your recommendation.
Key topics in D355
- Compensation and rewards system design
- Aligning rewards with organizational strategy
- Internal fairness (pay equity)
- External competitiveness (market benchmarking)
Writing tips for D355
Follow the task instructions and rubric line by line
WGU performance assessments for D355 are graded against a fixed rubric — every rubric line has to be visibly addressed, usually with a labeled heading that mirrors the rubric language. Skipping a rubric point because it seems minor is the single most common reason a competent submission comes back "Not Yet Competent" for revision.
Ground HR recommendations in a specific organization, not generic HR theory
WGU evaluators are trained to distinguish genuine HR analysis from a paraphrased textbook summary. Anchor your submission in the specific organizational scenario the task provides, and show the reasoning connecting your recommendation to that organization's actual situation, not generic best-practice statements that could apply anywhere.
Because WGU is self-paced, don't let "no deadline pressure" become no submission
There's no weekly due date forcing progress, which means procrastination costs more at WGU than at a traditional term-based school — a stalled task can quietly eat weeks of a term. Treat your own target date for each D355 assessment as a real deadline.
Stuck on your D355 task?
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Why students seek help with D355
Students sometimes design a compensation package that's competitive externally but doesn't address internal equity (or vice versa) — the course specifically frames this as a balancing act, and the rubric typically expects both sides addressed.
How GradeEssays helps with D355
Share your compensation scenario and rubric, and your writer will build a total rewards design that explicitly balances internal fairness and external competitiveness.
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Place Your Order View All ServicesPrerequisites and program context
D355 has no listed additional prerequisites and is specific to the HRM bachelor's degree.