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Archive for January, 2009
HR Communication Lesson About Simplicity
Jan 30Here’s your HR communication lesson today. It’s something I learned in journalism school:
Say it once. Say it right. Get outta there.
I could say a bunch more, but you get the point. I’m outta here.
Exploding Some Comp Department Myths
Jan 29To: All Managers
From: Comp Department
Re: Exploding Myths — Here’s How Compensation Really Works
Dear Manager,
I thought it was time to explode a few myths and legends about Compensation. I’m not talking here about pay, which is what goes into paychecks. I’m talking about what we do in Comp. Let’s end the mystery.
- Myth: Everyone is underpaid.
Reality: That’s nuts. We target our pay at the median for all jobs…and we meet that objective. Everyone thinks they’re underpaid, but they’re not. We look at tons of independently verified data from thousands of jobs and companies. It’s real data. There’s a distribution of pay, but not everyone is underpaid. In fact, almost no one is unless their performance warrants it. It’s our job to make sure that’s the case. - Myth: Everyone’s pay situation is unique.
Reality: Snowflakes are unique, trust me, your employee’s story isn’t. Every manager tries to work a deal and get “just a few thousand more dollars.” Multiply that “unique” situation times 10,000 people. A million here and a million there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. (To paraphrase Sen. Everett Dirksen.) - Myth: There’s a slush fund. Comp controls it.
Reality: There’s no extra money laying around and we don’t have it. We’re accountable to the Board about all the money that we need to provide competitive compensation. The Board doesn’t give us a slush fund to spend how we like. We’re not holding anything back from you. - Myth: My employee could get lots more money elsewhere. He’s going to leave if we don’t pay up.
Reality: If that’s the case, your employee should go and get the money. Ask about where your employee is compared to the market. We know enough to tell you about total compensation. We know what’s happening. Someone’s cousin’s uncle isn’t a place to get reliable comp data. - Myth: You’re just trying to spend as little money as possible.
Reality: We spend the appropriate amount of money for total compensation to attract and retain employees. We have a fiscal responsibility in Comp to spend every bit of money in the most efficient way possible. Throwing bushels of cash at people isn’t a way to get motivation or meet our business objectives.
That’s a few of the myths and realities, folks. We’re on your side — we’re not the enemy and we’re not little generals. We spend a lot of time with data. We know what other companies are doing. We work to link pay and performance. And we are employees, too.
Best regards,
Your Compensation Team
The Value of Normalizing the Situation
Jan 28Did you notice what happened very quickly after US Airways 1549 landed in the Hudson River? Government officials were all over the television saying, “Everything’s okay. This was an oddity. We have the bird situation under control. Here’s how we handle the birds in our flight paths.”
That’s called normalizing the situation in the communication business. Tell everyone that it’s going to be okay. That it’s not SNAFU. That we know why things happened. Move along folks, nothing to look at here.
What’s sadly missing in a lot of employee communication these days is the lack of normalizing. We hear of thousands and thousands of people being laid off — and we hear almost nothing about the millions upon millions of people who are still working to make their workplace better. Wouldn’t it be great to hear some uplifting stories right about now? To tell your employees some stories about what’s going well instead of only that things are bad and could get worse?
How in the Hell Do You Lose 71,400 Jobs in One Day?
Jan 27Yep, there were 71,400 jobs lost yesterday. CNN is calling it Bloody Monday. More than 500,000 jobs are being lost a month.
I wish I had some really great HR advice today. I’m a little shell shocked, but here’s what I’d say: For those of you who are still there…kick ass. Do your best work. Stop going to meetings. Start doing things. Make money.
Now’s the time to do our best work.
What About Manager Engagement?
Jan 26My son, Stephen, is a sophomore in high school and takes a full complement of AP classes. This weekend is the weekend before semester finals. We drove him and a friend over to another student’s house so that they could work in their study group for AP European History. While they were there, his AP Euro teacher called his cell phone to make sure that they were studying and if they had any questions. Their teacher, who they affectionately call “Z,” did that for every student in his classes. Every one. Stephen told me that his group had some questions later — this was on a Saturday — and they called “Z” back to ask. He answered.
All of which made me think about the talking we do in HR about employee engagement. What about manager engagement? What about calling and checking in? What about caring? It’s a start…and employees will be engaged when managers are engaged. We all need more “Z’s” in our lives, and I’m not talking about sleep.
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