Some things change. Other things are more enduring in their reflection of truth and human nature.
I think of goals as falling into the second category.
Technology messes with them some on both ends; it brings us efficiency and organizational capabilities for goal management, but it also accelerates the business cycle so that it often feels impossible to even set them. Nonetheless, this much is true: Employees do better with clear communication about what is expected of them. Read more…
Our salary ranges are not serving us as well as they once may have.
We know it. Unhappily, most employees know it, too.
My Compensation Cafe colleague Margaret O’Hanlon called attention to this reality last week in her post Do You Know What Your Salary Ranges Mean?
Margaret notes that the traditional salary range model, which communicates the essence of the deal we offer employees, no longer delivers on its purported promises. Read more…
Why do so many of us get so bent out of shape about CEO compensation, but not about that of other relatively highly paid people?
That is the central question explored by Cornell University’s Kevin Hallock in his December Workspan column Research for the Real World, where he compares the growth in pay at the 95th percentile (top 5 percent) for CEOs and average U.S. workers to that of athletes in Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League.
From 1995 to 2010, pay for this group of U.S. workers grew 69 percent while pay for the CEO group increased by 240 percent (one of those statistic that often provokes outrage). Read more…
Providing employees with specific information on their productivity is one no-to-low-cost way to drive improvements in their performance.
A recent Harvard Business Review Daily Stat (To Boost Workers’ Productivity, Tell Them How They Rank) reminds us of this reality via the story of a German wholesaler that saw an average (and apparently sustained) jump in average productivity after sharing information about employees’ relative performance.
When the conditions are right, most of us will respond positively to feedback that either points directly to actions we can take or triggers an instinct to better our showing relative to our peers. Read more…
A new book about innovation is structured around a central question, which the author (Michael Schrage) calls the Ask. The central question (and the title of the book): Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?
An article on FastCompany.com by Schrage takes a closer look at this question, noting that it is the ask that differentiates innovators and how they approach their customers.
The point, in a nutshell: Successful innovators don’t just ask customers and clients to do something different; they ask them to become someone different. Read more…
Year-end creeps up earlier these days, it seems. At one time, I considered year-end to be approaching when the leaves turned color and the air turned cooler.
These days, in the middle of a warm green August, I know year-end is on its way because people are reviewing their incentive plans and trying to nail down any changes to be made for next year. And I know this because of the calls and the questions I am getting.
Questions like: Read more…
Performance management. What could be more critical to organizational success than guiding, aligning and – yes – assessing the performance of people relative to key goals and priorities?
And yet, look at the levels of debate and angst that continue, both inside as well as outside the HR profession, about how and even whether it should be done – particularly in the Age of Innovation.
Much has been written lately about Microsoft and its “stack ranking” process – a program that forced every unit of the company to identify a certain percentage of its employees as top, good, average and poor performers.
The Vanity Fair article which broke the story earlier this month notes that every single one of the current and former Microsoft employees interviewed cited ranking as “the most destructive process inside of Microsoft,” and claims that the program “effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate.” The title of a follow-up Forbes article says it all: The Terrible Management Technique that Cost Microsoft its Creativity. Read more…
Think that a generous, transparent, strategically aligned rewards package will “compensate” for the fact that you have lousy managers in key positions that company leadership is simply unwilling to address?
Better think again.
A recent study by Zenger/Folkman featured in a HBR blog post, provides some compelling evidence on the impact of bad bosses on employee satisfaction, engagement and commitment. The study centers on the effectiveness of 2,865 leaders (as judged by bosses, subordinates, peers and other colleagues via a 360 degree assessment) in a large financial service company. Read more…
Have compensation professionals, once the math and data heroes of the HR world, fallen behind the curve in analytics?
New research suggests it could be so.
In their joint report 2012 Metrics and Analytics: Patterns of Use and Value, WorldatWork and Mercer find that compensation functions continue to rely almost exclusively on benchmarking techniques and haven’t yet moved to the more advanced analytical methods, methods like simulations and predictive modeling, that many of their peer professionals are using to support decision making.
In the WorldatWork WorkspanTV video below, Mercer’s Haig Nalbantian and Brian Kelly discuss the research and its findings. Read more…
As an independent advisor, I am often called in to help with situations where compensation has become a very emotional and even intractable problem. Having the opportunity to work with — and through — many of these situations over the years has taught me a lot.
The biggest lesson is probably this: Clarity, process and structure are the most effective remedies for compensation angst. This is true whether the pay concern involves an individual or a group of people.
In the absence of clear, explicit process and structure for addressing and making a decision about the compensation concern, you must go about creating these things. Read more…
“This is an excellent time for employers to create the foundation and practices inside organizations that result in retention. Turnover . . . ”
— PJ Mac on Survey: Half of Companies Report Higher Turnover Than Last Year, 1 hour ago
“LOL”
— Laurie Ruettimann on Everything That You Really Need to Know About LinkedIn, 1 hour ago
“Ha ha!”
— Crystal Spraggins on Five Reasons Your Employees Like It When You Stay Home, 1 hour ago
“You are so right Scott. I started as HR, shifted to OD and am also now one of those . . . ”
— Carol Anderson on It’s Not Easy, But Here’s Where HR Can Add Value to the Business, 3 hours ago
“Crystal - Don't take my word for it - just go up and Hug her - she's really too small . . . ”
— Tim Sackett on My Rules For Hugging at the Office, 3 hours ago