In all the news and research feeds I follow, occasionally the author of an article or post will phrase his comments in a way that leaves me thinking, “I wish I’d written that myself.”
One such statement comes from Jay Forte on the Human Capitalist blog:
You don’t pay your employees to do a job. You pay them to think about and deliver the best, most efficient and most profitable response in each moment. The better aligned they are to jobs that fit their abilities — roles that let them do what they do best — the better their decisions and the greater their performance. Job fit, or the right talent for the right job, drives success. Talent makes or breaks an organization.”
Jay drives home why a favored phrase of lazy managers – “I don’t need to recognize employees; That’s what I pay them for” – is so wrong.
1. Assessing job fit
This belief of lazy managers ignores the importance of job fit. The question remains – How do you make sure you have the right talent in the right job? How do you know for sure employees are truly delivering their best?
Sure, the obvious answer is the performance review, but I think we’d all agree the way in which the annual review is usually implemented is flawed at best. Besides, you need employees “deliver[ing] the best, most efficient and most profitable response in each moment” – this moment, right now.
That’s what makes social recognition the most powerful tool in the HR tool kit to assess job fit in real time.
In an environment where all employees are empowered and encouraged to recognize others for exceptional work in the moment, managers and HR leadership have exponentially more data points to better infer which employees are in roles where they are having a differentiating impact on their colleagues, the team, the customers or the company.
At the very least, HR has more information on a more regular basis to start to ask important questions.
2. Valuing employees with more than a paycheck
Critically, if all you’re doing is paying employees to do a job (and relying on standard merit increases as a primary reward mechanism or doing so), you’re not really valuing your employees at all.
Looking at recent data, 2 percent and 3 percent are the most common budgeted pay raises this year in the UK. In November, SHRM projected that U.S. salary increase budgets for 2014 would remain at 3 percent, too.
Yet, the rate of inflation in the UK is hovering between 1.6 percent and 2 percent. And, the rate of inflation in the U.S. is holding steady around 2 percent as well. Merit increases today barely keep up with the cost of living.
Talent needs to be recognized – and rewarded
If we do, indeed, believe that “talent makes or breaks an organization” (and I certainly do), then talent needs to be recognized and rewarded for the great work they do beyond their pay check alone.
Great work deserves great acknowledgment – from everyone and available to everyone.
What do you pay your employees to do?
This was originally published at the Compensation Café blog, where you can find a daily dose of caffeinated conversation on everything compensation.