I share my house with a brood of cats and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.  I love them, but recognize that they are stubborn, stubborn, stubborn creatures, and at times it seems like they’re the ones who run the place.

Have you ever tried to change a cat’s food, or their litter box, or their water dish?  They don’t react well to the new and different, and when they don’t react well their loud and disdainful behavior can really disrupt your day.

These felines are also creatures of habit, preferring a daily pattern of repeated behavior that in their view creates a safe and reassuring environment – where they feel the most comfortable.  Break that pattern and you get the look, or worse.  I can attest to the fact that dealing with the stubborn and habitual can be a real trial.

In the business world there are many companies run by a leadership who possess similar inflexible behavior, an aversion to breaks in pattern.  Those who like things just the way they are.  Whoever coined the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was probably a charter member in that “blinders on, head in the sand” leadership cadre who likes things just the way they are.

While it’s a truism that yesterday’s strategy and operating principles are rarely a recipe for future success, how often do you see managers hang on to what used to work – until the signs of failure become so visible and so painful that it can no longer be accepted?

Comfort

These folks with their heads in the sand are not necessarily bad managers, or even poor business leaders.  What they are is comfortable, and when we’re comfortable we feel safe, relaxed in our surroundings, familiar with what needs to get done and a bit over confident about our control of our business environment.

When we feel comfortable and confident we prefer to repeat those same actions that brought us to our present state of mental ease.  In other words, we don’t like to rock the boat, we don’t like “change for the sake of change,” and we’re skeptical of new and unproven techniques.  We get stubborn and dig in our heels.

It’s worked before, it brought us success.  Let’s leave it alone.

However, when someone or some event breaks that comfort level (new competition, weakened economy, technological advances, etc.), the first thing we experience is anger that our warm cocoon could be shattered by new business realities.  Soon enough though, that anger will convert to a sense of fear, whether we admit it or not.  More likely we’ll act out in an aggressive fashion that disguises the panic we feel.

Fear

People can be fearful of change, especially leaders.  Because they don’t know the new rules, because there are risks when implementing new strategies, and those who stick their head above the crowd can get it chopped off.  We’ve all seen that happen.

When you must get yourself up and out of your comfort zone it’s a natural reaction to feel defensive and unsure about what you should do next.  Leadership may not have the competencies or the experience to adapt to new business challenges.  It’s not difficult to lead when things are going well.  But when the going gets rough, when the pressure is on to change course, to implement new strategies, not so much.

I’m not sure about what to do; everything has changed.

Pushed out from their safe environment management can find itself unsure, defensive and unsettled about the correct way forward.  And until matters settle down again they can be difficult for practitioners to work with.

You can help them

You may consider managers stuck in the past as living dinosaurs, but have a care because these beasts have teeth.  They don’t like this uncomfortable new world, and they tend to shoot the messengers.  To offer assistance to a leadership challenged by the unfamiliar practitioners need to step up and provide steady, confident and reliable advice.

• Acknowledge the past: Yes, previous strategies have worked well and brought the company success and financial strength, reputation and a strong foundation for the future.  A pat on the shoulders for management.

• Focus on the why: Whenever advocating change, focus your message, your research, your examples and your entire business case on why your recommendations lead to solutions.  Keep your eye on the goal, not that you’re changing patterns of behavior.

• Dangle the carrot: Always point toward the business and personal success that would be the result of your recommendations.  Besides showing the achievement of business success, emphasize that the deciding leadership will gain credit for managing the organization through these difficult times.  Stroking the ego doesn’t hurt here.

The next time someone comes to you with an idea to build a better mousetrap, listen to them.  Keep your eyes, your mind and your options open.  Instead of being afraid of change, embrace the opportunities presented.  It can make for a better tomorrow, and you’ll shake the tag of “stubborn.”

A lot of talented folks are unemployed or “in transition” these days, working full time in their efforts to land a new job.

When that goal is finally reached, when someone says, “we love you, please come to work for us,” the tendency will be to respond with “thank you, YES.”  However, that immediate, knee-jerk reaction could be a mistake, as at that point you’re a desired candidate with options, while tomorrow you’ll be one of the staff – with little leverage at all.

When the moment of decision occurs, most Human Resource professionals would advise you to give the person who extended the offer a warm thank you, but then to take a little time for reflection on the particulars – the details.  The higher up the food chain you are, the more moving parts will comprise your employment offer.   No one is going to force you to decide right away, so don’t.

Presuming that the career implications are positive, that you don’t have to move to Northern Alaska, and that you want to accept the offer, let me suggest a few tactical strategies to help you make the most of what was offered.  Because with a bit of luck you can do better.

The Recruiter

Internal recruiters can be difficult to work with at times, but you need them.  So keep a smile on your face and play nice throughout the interview process.  At some point your recruiter may be called on to negotiate with management on your behalf, so the relationship you have with this individual is critical.  Why?  As your offer was likely developed from the combined thought of the hiring Manager and Human Resources, the recruiter would play the part of the messenger.  So if you wish to negotiate revised terms it’s the recruiter who needs to “sell” your point of view for a better deal.

The Package

I always advise clients to look past the base salary to the rest of the package, considering the offer in its entirety.  And make sure you have the offer in writing.   All the necessary elements should be included (i.e., title, salary, incentive, vacation, relocation, stock options, retirement, etc.), as there may be a cornucopia of opportunity to negotiate improvements by expanding your line of sight.

Cash Is Still King

It’s a safe bet that the company has left itself some wiggle room with its base salary offer, but the trick is to gauge how much room is left.  So be cautious.  Don’t be greedy by asking for a major increase, as that will alienate the hiring manager and your new friend, the recruiter.  Also, avoid giving the impression that you think they’ve low-balled you.  You can lose a lot of goodwill with that tact.

Perhaps an early performance review (six months?) will give you the time to prove your worth; or a sign-on bonus to improve your first year earnings.  Both are less visible within the organization than base salary, and management is often amenable to such “compromises.”

What’s Negotiable?

Once you’re past the cash part of the offer the company may prove more flexible, as the transparency of cash can be a limiting factor due to possible internal equity concerns.

Unless the company is restricted by plan documents, policy or statutory obligations they may be accommodating to certain requests, especially as they are eager for your acceptance.   As verbal promises carry little weight even a signed note in the margin of the offer letter would be sufficient authorization, so consider vacation days, early eligibility for incentives and options, perquisites as well as flexibility on relocation as possible improvements.

But have a care before asking for changes to tax-advantaged programs or those where equity issues might be a concern.  You will have little success here.

The Push Back

To open the negotiations first profess your genuine appreciation for the offer, then express an excitement at becoming part of the company team.  Only then should you mention your “disappointment” with whatever aspect of the offer package has created concern.

Note: make sure your list of disappointments is small.

When you ask for consideration of an improved offer remind the recruiter of your extensive background and experience, and the type and degree of contribution you will soon be making – but be specific.   Give the recruiter enough ammunition to help represent you.  Don’t leave the impression that you simply want more, but that you deserve more.

Final Thought

Your hard work at job search will pay off, that offer of employment will come your way.   When it does make sure you finish the job by not leaving opportunities on the table.  You can’t go back later to pick them up.

One of the most debated issues among Human Resource professionals for the past several years has been the back and forth arguments regarding effective performance appraisal processes.  Everyone seems to have their oar in the water, anxious to join the debate about what works and what doesn’t.

What companies should do, and what they shouldn’t.

In one corner you have the performance management crowd who want to divorce pay increases from the performance appraisal process.  Two separate discussions.  They prefer to focus attention on performance improvements and career counseling – issues that tend to have a longer term focus. Looking forward, not backward.  The subject of pay determination (the increase) would come later, during some vaguely defined subsequent conversation.

In another corner you have the so-called traditional practitioners, those who tie rewards directly to the work effort and in doing so tend to combine performance, reward determination and career counseling steps into a single conversation.  Performance improvements and the where-are-we-going? discussion are the epilogue here, not the main topic.

And finally you have the employee perspective, those who have delivered the performance and await management’s assessment and reward determination.  They want to see, and expect to see a direct connection between their efforts (performance) and a subsequent connecting reward (pay increase).

What’s wrong with performance appraisal?

Part of the reason for such active and long lasting debate between often opposing viewpoints is that performance appraisal systems are flawed; we all recognize that they are the object of numerous well-deserved criticisms.

• Managers do a poor job of it.  Whether it’s lack of training, lack of interest or simply an attitude of “I’ve got more important issues to deal with,” the result is often rushed, inadequately thought out and . . . short.

• Should pay increases be tied / linked with performance?  Appraisal conversations run the gamut from emphasizing the past review cycle’s performance to “looking forward for a more productive tomorrow.”  The cause-and-effect pay increase may or may not even be discussed.

• Favored son (or daughter) treatment.  The “I like you” or opposite syndrome, regardless of performance.  Fair treatment can be a casualty if appraisals are too subjective.  Refer again to the training issue.

• Job responsibilities not clarified. When the manager expects performance “A” and the employee thinks “B” is called for, and the outdated description shows a muddled “C” – what follows is going to be an awkward conversation.

• Forms gone wild.  Human Resources and systems people always tinkering with forms, creating ever longer, more complicated processes.  The usual result is a manager’s passive resistance and poorly handled assessments.

• Process evolution.  A good idea evolved into something bad, something feared, something to be avoided.  Other than the potential for a pay increase, almost nobody looks forward to these discussions.

• The focal date review.  “Let’s do these things all at once.”  Procedures that mass produce performance appraisal forms and meetings usually result in a loss of quality – and credibility for the process.  Pity the manager who has ten of these to work on at the same time.

What’s good about performance appraisal?

The process of performance appraisal has been around since the first manager – subordinate conversation, and that learning curve of experience has brought about a number of solid advantages:

• How else are you going to tell an employee how they’re doing?

• If your compensation strategy is to have a pay-for-performance program, you’ll need performance appraisal to assess the employee’s contribution, and to somehow assign a corresponding reward – to pay . . for. . performance.

• Employees expect a connection between performance and pay.  That’s what they’re listening for during the performance discussion.

• It makes sense to periodically review performance, to eliminate the need for employees to stress over when to ask for a raise.

During any performance appraisal discussion the employee’s first question (asked or simply thought) is always going to be, “how much is my raise?”  If you’re not prepared to discuss that, even mentioning your “recommendation,” you’re in trouble.  Because employees tend to pay closer attention to career counseling and next performance steps after the raise for past performance has been resolved.

When an employee expects a performance appraisal discussion to include a reference (at least) to a likely pay raise, and you don’t cover that topic, the meeting will go rapidly downhill from there.

• They won’t be hearing your thoughts for the future, as they’ve stopped listening.  You’re not talking about what they want to hear.

• Frustration and lost engagement are going to seep into body language, tone and perhaps even conversation, with the recognition that pay-for-performance is somehow not viewed as a primary concern by management (by you).

• To make the assessment process work employees need to be engaged in the  conversation.  Otherwise what you’re left with is delivering a lecture, a boring monologue to a half-interested party who only hears bla-bla-bla.

What do I think?

I like to connect rewards with performance, because performance rewarded is performance repeated.

I like to acknowledge the elephant in the room, that employees want and expect that their performance appraisal meeting would cover reward determination as a key component, even if senior management approval remains pending.

I don’t like to artificially separate performance from reward, as if somehow the two aren’t connected.  The employee considers it a solid, direct line connection.

Go ahead and disagree, if you like.  There are many valid points of view on the subject, and no single answer works every time, for every organization.

But now you have my two cents.

Over the past three years a litany of bad economic news has been the daily fodder of economists, corporate managers, the politicians and of course the media pundits.  Collectively we have slogged our painful way through reductions-in-force (RIFs), wage freezes, hiring freezes, benefit cutbacks and in general having to do more with less while we looked over our shoulder for the next axe to fall.

And of course we’ve all experienced the painful shrink of our 401k down to a 201k.

So there hasn’t been a lot to smile about.  But perhaps this is finally the year when the freeze starts to thaw, just a bit.  Salary increases are slowly trending upward toward pre-recession levels, according to first results coming out of the latest WorldatWork Salary Budget survey.

• Salary budgets increased by 2.8% in 2011 and are projected to rise by 2.9% in 2012.  Not much, but in the right direction.

• Base salary increases were awarded to 88% of employees in 2011, vs. 86% in 2010 and only 80% in 2009.

• Only 3% of employers are planning across-the-board salary freezes in 2011, vs. 10% in 2010 and 43% in 2009.

So much for the good news

Given all that employees have suffered through is it any wonder that those still employed (and especially those under-employed) are cynical, agitated and teeming with unresolved anger over their treatment?  How many have heard the attitude voiced by “where are you going to go?” or “you’re lucky to have a job.”  Attitudes like that stay with a person, and they burn deep; those phrases are remembered, to be acted upon when the time is right.  Because the worm will eventually turn.

The clock is ticking for organizations who have mistreated or taken advantage of employees on the back of the bad economy.

What are we seeing now?  While the economy continues to sputter along this year amid mixed labor reports and market volatility, US employee confidence related to pay raises, job security and the labor market fell to levels last seen during the height of the 2008-09 recession, according to the Glassdoor Employment Confidence Survey.

According to their report, 48% of employees reported that they did not expect to receive a pay raise in the next 12 months – the highest level of negativism seen in almost two years.  On the other hand 36% do expect a raise in the next year, but that figure is down 4% since the same time last year.

They don’t like their jobs either

Mercer reports (What’s Working Survey) that 32% of US employees are seriously considering leaving their organizations, up sharply since the 23% from the good times of 2005.  Meanwhile, a further 21% were not looking to leave but viewed their employers unfavorably and had rock-bottom scores on key measures of engagement, reflecting diminished loyalty, commitment and motivation.  So you have 44% of employees actively dissatisfied with their job and their employer.

How many of those do you think are silent about their discontent?  How many are your better performers?  How many can you afford to lose?

Overall scores were consistently down across critical engagement measures, while intention to leave was up across all employee segments.  The youngest workers were most likely to be considering the exit: 40% of employees aged 25 to 34 and 44% of employees 24 and younger were thinking about leaving.

A lone light in the window?

One hopeful light in the gloomy picture I’ve just painted is an uptick of activity in market pricing studies commissioned by management.  Even with an uncertain future ahead more and more organizations are coming to the realization that you can’t hold down employee pay forever.  At some point you have to move forward, or risk seriously damaging morale and forcing a mass exodus of talent toward the first competitor who says “Come work for us.  We value you, and we’ll treat you right.”

Of course, studying the marketplace, understanding how competitive pay levels have changed over the last few years is not a solution in itself.  Companies can still decide not to take action.  They may still not be able to afford to take corrective action.  But at least more of them are asking the questions, which means more are growing worried that this leaner workforce of theirs needs to be valued and rewarded competitively for their efforts.  Just like companies did before the great recession.

But the clock is ticking; employees are growing less patient.  Those who have options to leave are already starting to do so.  Be careful that those left behind are not merely a combination of “average” performers and the unmotivated who only occupy a chair.

Everyone out there, no matter what they are responsible for, has certain tasks or responsibilities as part of their job that they enjoy doing.  Likewise, there are certain other aspects to the job that they . . . would prefer not to have to do.

Often the emotional reaction is even stronger.

I work in Human Resources, and personally have never liked being responsible for job evaluation.   A thankless task if ever there was one, and one certain to impact the number of Christmas cards I received each year.   But that’s another story.

Line and staff managers have their own likes and dislikes as well, but it’s a hard-and-fast certainty that they don’t like to write job descriptions.  Why?  Because they hate them, and will look sideward at HR when they see us coming.   We’re the folks who insist on bothering them with this administrative hassle.

Yep, that’s what most of them think.  But why?  What are the friction points that cause so many Managers to start grinding their teeth when the subject even comes up?

• Many don’t see the point:  most view the writing (preparation) of a job description as a make-work effort, when “everyone knows” the job already.  So why do we need to do it, they grumble.  Why do we have to write it down?

Or, why don’t you do it?

They consider this onerous task as filling an HR need, not one of their own.  So it’s not a necessity, not a priority and certainly doesn’t help them.  To be fair though, not everyone feels as strongly, but you’ll see this reaction often enough to sense a common behavior.

• The formatting is not manager-friendly: so-called HR “specialists” are always tinkering with the form template, seeking a better way to describe a job.  But that better way usually results in a description preparation process that is overly long, tedious and a drudgery to follow.

After all, how many ways can there be to describe the tasks and responsibilities of a job?  Here is where HR consistently shoots itself in the foot, by making the simple more complex, the straightforward more convoluted and an easy job becomes a trying ordeal.  At least that’s the way it looks from the manager’s perspective.

• They take too long to complete: over time the forms get lengthier, the instructions more complex and the questions that need to be answered more numerous.  And the result?  When something you don’t like to do takes a long time, what naturally follows is a combination of delay and reduced quality.

Some Managers will also rush the process, will have the employees themselves do the work (a separate challenge), will ignore information sections, will fail to properly complete others, etc.  A real mess can be sent to HR.

• Rumor: better writers get better deals: managers don’t look at themselves as writers, and they can’t seem to shake the bias that better written job descriptions get higher job evaluation scores.  “If only I could word this right,” is a common self-criticism, as if the reader takes every turn of phrase as gospel.

So another reason for delay is because they know they’re not very good at writing descriptions, so they put off starting.  Just like a homework assignment.

• They have better things to do: this is the bottom-line criticism, the core reason from many a complaining manager; “I’m a manager; I have a department / business / empire to run.  I don’t have the time to waste writing job descriptions.” In other words, you do it – and they don’t much care who the you is.

Not a pretty picture, is it?  But it doesn’t have to remain that way.

In my next article we’ll flip the coin and look at what you can do about this hatred-thing.  There are ways to create a win-win scenario, and perhaps even get a smile (albeit a small one) from your management contacts.

Stay tuned.

I once supervised a Compensation Analyst who had spent a great deal of time attending professional seminars and workshops.  She had attended these instructional sessions to learn about Compensation, as part of her professional development.

One result of that education was a favored response when faced with a challenge at work; she would fall back on her class work experience by saying, “the greatest minds in Compensation say that . . . “.  It took a great deal of patience on my part to educate this part time practitioner / part time student in the difference between the classroom / textbook answer and the reality of the workplace.

A short while ago I came across an HR blog in which the author was instructing readers in how to create a merit performance matrix.  Very good stuff, I thought, admiring the technical step-by-step instructions, except I knew from long experience that the procedure being described would never work in the real world.  Didn’t the author realize that?

Yes, it is very important to understand the technical foundations of Compensation methodology and practice.   But first and foremost you need to anchor yourself in the real world, to know what will work and not work in your own organization, what will be accepted and what will be rejected – no matter what the finest minds in Compensation think.

So you ask, why doesn’t Compensation theory match with compensation reality in the workplace?

• Business realities:  management will typically know more about a particular business situation than you do.  What you are able to provide to the decision-making process as a Compensation professional is limited to your particular subject area, while management usually has the bigger picture – the perspective of multiple viewpoints. Your compensation advice may not fit their business reality, no matter how logical an argument you make.

• Bias of decision-makers:  decision-makers may feel that they intuitively know the right approach to take (they’ve done it before, if-it’s-not-broke-don’t-fix-it, a friend / relation / old college chum suggested an approach, etc.).  Perhaps they read an article just the other day and now are insistent to follow the advice of an author who doesn’t have a clue about their particular business.  Years ago I worked for a company whose CEO forced HR to implement a particular benefit plan because he had read a magazine article.  It does happen.

• Problem avoidance:  short of killing the messenger, one solution for management is to do nothing about a problem (you’ve exaggerated it, the solution costs too much, there’s still time, etc.).  Senior managers can be like politicians in avoiding the big decision unless and until it bites them in the leg.  Have a care, as it can be dangerous to your career if you try to force a decision.

• Business culture or model: some initiatives just don’t “fit” in your organization.  Managers with a laid back organization style will not be interested in recommendations to document everything, standardize policies and procedures and have approved forms for every possible use.  Picture your head banging against the wall.

Sometimes those subject matter experts who instruct in Compensation techniques fail to ground their instructions with a caution to their students;  check this process out in the reality of your workplace before you take a classroom or textbook technique and wave it in the face of management.

Two examples:

1)      Merit matrix:  when designing a pay-for-performance merit increase matrix the standard rule is to place the average increase percentage in the cell block most populated by employees (average performance and average position-in-range).   The sound reasoning for this technique is to better manage the costs associated with that year’s annual increase process.

A long time ago I followed that approach in my first compensation leadership role.  I still have a little bump where my head hit the wall.

Here’s the rub; such a technique requires that the matrix change every year, as the analysis demands that each year you study your population averages.  But management will likely have none of that.  They’ll want the same matrix every year, for ease of administration and communication.

2)      Cost of living as a basis for pay increases:  I once watched over a fascinating exchange on a Compensation bulletin board, where a debate raged on for several days.  The dispute was over the appropriate formulae to use for calculating the cost of living vs. cost or labor as it affected average pay increases that management would approve.  Each side of the argument provided formulae, charts and graphs and quotes from notable experts to press home their opinion.

The underlying reality behind this exchange is that management does not use the cost of living as a prime determinant in their decision-making.  They are more likely to roll their eyes at the technical debate and focus on competitiveness and bottom line cost (affordability) – and why can’t we do the same as we did last year?  If their ultimate decision relates to the cost of living in some way, that’s only a nice coincidence that they can use with their employee communications.

A skill-set that separates the compensation technician from the compensation professional is the ability to deal with what I call the “softer” side of compensation.  Survey statistics, charts and formulae are very good to a point, but management will want to know what it means and what to do about it.  So the answer isn’t simply reporting the data, but in taking that next step to help management understand and strategize their next move.

The contribution you can make to your organization is to blend your technical knowledge (the how-to) with seasoning and experience to understand what will work for your organization, considering culture and management bias.  Technical knowledge will give you the same answer every time, but knowing how to use that knowledge like a craftsman’s tool to aid in achieving business objectives – that is the key to success as a Compensation professional.

It used to be a common view that the Human Resources department in large companies was more sophisticated, more professional, and more forward-thinking than what you would expect to find from HR in smaller companies.

We all presumed that the “big guys” knew what they were doing.

But current thinking among some practitioners now challenge that presumption.

The pendulum of thought has begun to swing the other way.  Indeed, sophisticated has become cumbersome, professional has become bureaucratic and forward-thinking has created a chasm of credibility between philosophical concepts and the practical realities that managers deal with every day.

Remember the K-I-S-S principle (keep it simple, stupid)?  Many large organizations seem to have forgotten that common sense caution as they saddled their reward programs with ever more forms, procedures and bureaucracy.

The Evolution of Performance Appraisal

A good example of HR systems gone wild is the difference between a small company performance appraisal and the convoluted processes often followed by large companies.  Herein lies a stark contrast not only of styles but of methodologies and core beliefs that a more complex better way will increase the effectiveness of employee reward programs.

This growth of complexity is commonplace; by the time an organization achieves a certain population size HR feels compelled to complicate their processes – usually in the name of increased employee sensitivities and streamlined procedures.  What worked well before (when the business was smaller) is suddenly suspect, deemed somehow less effective, less desirable.

What began as direct cause and effect, performance followed by assessment = reward, suddenly becomes much more complex, more confusing to some, more aggravating to others.  Communication becomes critical but is often flawed and ineffective as both employees and managers question the additional complexity.

What follows is a brief comparison between how small and large companies approach the critically important performance appraisal process.

The Small Company Experience:

• The employee’s performance is assessed against what is expected of them.

• Performance discussions usually take place on the anniversary of either employment or promotion.

• Forms are basic, even simple.  They may not be standardized, and one or two pages are usually enough.

• The process doesn’t take a lot of time.  Meetings tend to be short and focused, so both parties can get back to work.

• What the boss says is what is going to happen.  The approval chain is abbreviated; messages from the performance meeting are typically what actually happens.

• The money discussion (pay increase) is front and center, a cause-and-effect dialogue.  You have performed thus and so, and your salary will be changed from “x” to “y.”

How Large Companies Tend to Operate:

• The employee’s performance may be assessed against other employee’s, as much as against what is expected of them (based on their job description).

• Performance discussions use a Focal Point strategy, where everybody is reviewed at the same time.  For managers with more than two or three subordinates, this represents a challenge in terms of time spent and quality of assessments.

• Managers are often required to use intricate, multi-part, multi-page forms designed by a specialty section within HR.

• Employee performance as a group may be viewed against a desired bell-shaped curve of results.  Individual assessments may later be modified to fit the expected / budgeted shape of the curve.

• The boss makes upward “recommendations,”  which may or may not be approved.  Thus, the conversation with the employee ends on a “we’ll see” basis where money is concerned.

• Other topics like developing future performance, improvement strategies / action plans, and “where are we going?” discussions may predominate.  Sometimes talk of a pay is deferred, raising the question of whether performance actually relates to reward.   Meanwhile, the employee wants to hear about a raise.

• Employees could feel lost in the bureaucracy, a faceless ID number trapped within a huge spreadsheet.  For them, cause and effect becomes a pep rally concept, with little connection between individual performance and reward.

So what has been lost as the organization grew larger?  Has it become more impersonal, forms-centric, process controlled, and standardized?  And is that better than before?  Perhaps more has been lost than gained.

How did the organization evolve itself into something potentially less helpful, less effective?  Perhaps the poking and prodding of systems and procedures in the name of improvement went too far, until they created a convoluted and twisted version of their desired state.

Perhaps we’ve let specialists over analyze the psychology of a boss rewarding a good performer.  We’ve exchanged hard decisions with real impact for a muted “everyone deserves something” approach.  The following scenario is common.

• Sub-function specialty groups are created within HR, be they Training, Management Development, Succession Planning or a host of others popularized in prevailing industry jargon.  Each group has advocates that push an agenda of change.

• These specialty groups must justify their existence, to validate the worth of their profession, and their mission.  The result is additional layers of forms, procedures and extra time constraints for managers to struggle with.

• Over time these experts lose sight of the managers they should be trying to help.  They don’t understand the beast they’re trying to tame.  By pressing their own agenda they tell management how to assess performance.

• Ultimately these groups become blockers, getting in the way of a smooth-running operation.  Objecting managers tend to respond with a campaign of passive resistance.

So can we make our large companies “feel” smaller when dealing with employees?  How do we reverse the model of increasing complexity and confusion?

When the state of affairs has gone off the tracks, how many times have you heard – or used the phrase, “let’s get back to basics?”

Perhaps that thought could be useful today, no matter what size organization you hail from.  Simply return to the fundamentals of performance management, where performance is assessed, which in turn leads to reward.

It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

K-I-S-S

Are the employees in your organization informed of their salary grade, or of the minimum, midpoint and maximum values of their salary range?  Do they know where their job stands in the company’s hierarchy (mine is bigger than “x,” but smaller than “y”)?   In effect, do they know how they and their job are being viewed by the company’s compensation program?

If they don’t, why not?

Is this privileged information, tightly held by Human Resources and only doled out in small drips, when asked?

Is it a secret?

Some companies don’t tell an employee their grade or salary range; or if they do, that’s all they give – the employee’s present status as a single, unrelated piece of information within a huge jigsaw puzzle.  In such a case the employee is unable to find out the grade or salary range of any job other than their own.  Without a frame of reference, such a restricted disclosure is not very helpful in planning that next career move.

Employees also won’t know if they’re being treated fairly.

Limitations on disclosure are strictly for the benefit of the company.  No one will say that the employees don’t want to know, or that such information isn’t important.  Instead,  reluctance to disclose is inherently a management decision meant to advance tactical considerations in support  of their own agenda.  In other words, it helps management freedom of action when employees are kept in the dark.

But what’s such a bad idea with informing employees about the broader compensation structure, to let them know where they stand within the organization?

• Unless there’s something to hide

• Something the employee should not discover

• Some policy or practice that cannot be defended

Given these potential cautions, while the concept of open disclosure often gets the heads nodding as a grand idea, negative practical implications may point in the opposite direction.  It’s the old “but not for us” ploy.

What could go wrong?

When the pay structure is posted on the wall for the first time, there for everyone to have a look-see, the phones will start to ring.   That signals the start of the “what about me?” questions.   Let’s look at a few common scenarios that managers would dearly love to avoid hearing about.

• If the midpoint is 100 and the employee is at the minimum, say 80 (-20%), even after five years of good performance reviews, how does the manager explain that?

• Why is that job (point at anyone) in a grade higher than mine?  No manager wants to defend job evaluation results, especially as it’s an inherently subjective process.

• Why is the job I want to bid on only a lateral move for me?

• If my job is so important (manager said so), then why is “job x” in the same grade?

Management doesn’t want to get these calls, because often times they’re woefully unprepared to answer the employee’s questions.   And they want to be liked, to have someone else be blamed.  So wouldn’t it be easier if the employee just didn’t know?  Wouldn’t it be easier to operate the business with employees left in the dark about their grade and salary range status, rather than face potentially awkward questions out in the light?

It does make sense, but for who?

We’ve all seen the comic strip cartoon where an employee gets themselves pumped up to ask the boss for a raise.  It’s often good humor, and always at the expense of the bumbling employee.  They always seem to get it          wrong, and we the reader have a good chuckle as the payoff.

But how often do we look at that same scenario from the manager’s perspective?  Not much humor there, I’m afraid.  An awkward conversation with an employee rarely is.

In reality most companies of any size have a regularly scheduled performance review for their employees, where past performance would be assessed and a likely pay increase granted.  Usually the two are connected.

When an employee request for a pay raise comes between the review cycles, a common response is to tell the employee to wait until the scheduled review. That’s why a review is scheduled in the first place, to make sure an assessment of performance and pay does take place for all the employees.  Everyone gets treated the same.  If that wasn’t happening, everyone would be asking for the same special consideration and the company’s annual review cycle would be thrown out the window.

So much for the easy part.  However, the greater challenge is when such an off-cycle request comes in the form of a disgruntled employee who feels that they are being short-changed in some way, taken for granted or otherwise being (in their minds) grossly underpaid.

Handling the angry employee

In this case telling them to wait won’t do; you have to deal with the emotion of anger, as well as the growing cynicism that the company has been talking advantage of them, for pay purposes, for some time.

And you can be certain other employees will have their eyes and ears out for what is happening – and the respect you show for the employee.

While each conversation with an employee can be a unique experience for both parties, consider several pointers that might help you and the unhappy worker.

• Remind the employee that there is a process.  Always start with the reminder that the company does review performance and pay levels, that there is a process.  No one is being forgotten.

• Get them to talk about their qualifications.  You still need to let the employee have their say, but try to steer the conversation toward the employee’s own capabilities, background and experience.

• Do not address emotional issues like need.  That’s a slippery slope that pulls the conversation away from business and into the grey area of personalities, home life and pressures from outside the work environment.

• Keep the conversation about the employee, no one else.  While you’re willing to discuss how the employee facing you is being treated, you should not open the conversation as to how other employees are being treated.  There are too many variables at play here, but perhaps most important is that it isn’t any of the employee’s business – as long as they themselves are treated correctly.

• Show an open mind.  Never give the impression that you’re only going through the motions, offering only a “courtesy” meeting.  You need to genuinely listen, ask questions and show the employee that you’re prepared to listen and consider.

• Don’t get defensive.  Avoid being trapped into defending the company’s pay programs against the employee’s “research” into market pay.   Company pay programs are typically developed by professionals (again, in companies of any size), and it’s likely that the employees is using biased and simplistic figures.

• Don’t get into an argument.  No one wins here, but you’ll likely lose more because the court of employee opinion likely gave you one or two stikers before you came to bat.

• Don’t make promises, especially if you’re not authorized.  And don’t use throw away phrases like “I’ll look into it” or “let me talk to HR”, unless you mean it.  Unless you are actually going to take up the employee’s issues and run with it.  Because that will obligate you to report back to the employee, thus initiating another awkward conversation.

At the end of the day, your prime goal should be to come away from the discussion where the employee has had an opportunity to have their say, you’ve had an opportunity to listen without pre-judgment and the points raised by both parties can be further considered.  It doesn’t mean that you have to agree, but that effective communications has taken place.  Meanwhile the employee should come away with a better understanding of the company’s pay programs, where they stand and how they can improve themselves.

Note:  if perchance the employee has a point, and can make a case for improper treatment, don’t be a stickler for the “rules” but immediately raise the matter with higher ups and those in a position to further review and institute changes.

Can you recall an instance at work where you made a mistake, an error in judgment, a bad decision?  An “oh cripes!” moment that you would have liked to have had back again?  Perhaps it was a rash decision, a lapse in sound thinking, or simply poor planning that caused you to take a wrong step.  And if you were unlucky, that error was noticed far and wide.

You remember how you felt then, don’t you?  You were likely embarrassed, surprised or even angry.  Certainly you felt awkward that you had messed up and that people had noticed.  To cap it off, in that memory of yours the wrong people had noticed, hadn’t they?

Bet you won’t do that again!

Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stick out your neck again.  Turtles don’t make for good leaders.

Because when we make a mistake and learn from it, when we use a negative experience to help us prepare for the next opportunity, we grow as professionals – as individuals and as leaders.  That painful lesson will be more deeply embedded in our consciousness because of the fact that we did screw up, made a bad decision or used poor judgment.  It’s human nature for us to remember our foibles, and because of that to hopefully not repeat those circumstances where we had burned our fingers.

If we were risk adverse and played it safe throughout our career, if we avoided decisions, kept our head down, didn’t stretching ourselves, we would likely never fly high.  We would also never be noticed by the higher ups and our career would never quite get us where we wanted to go.

No pain, no gain?

If you use your mistakes as a learning experience, what would you learn if you never make a mistake?  Chances are your ego would swell with self-importance and what had been healthy self-confidence would have morphed into supreme over-confidence.  You would start reading your own press releases, and on that pathway lies a steep cliff.  it’s only a matter of distance.

I remember my father telling me, “at least try.”  That’s good advice for managers too.

So take a calculated risk.  I’m not talking about a roll of the dice, but a decision or an action plan based on your knowledge and experience.  Use your professional judgment and put a stake in the ground.  Stand up for something.  Learn from the experience.  And if you stumble, pick yourself right up again and get back in the fray.  Just don’t make the same mistake twice.

While most companies talk about the advantages of risk taking, many don’t walk the talk.  Instead, some organizations simply get rid of those who had the misfortune to make a mistake.  In such an environment there is always someone out there trying to trip you up (passive resistance, nay-sayers, the overly critical, etc.), or to take advantage when you stumble (enter the political animal).  All of which sends a powerful message that risks are only entertained when in fact they aren’t risks at all.

On the other hand, creativity and innovation will be fostered in an environment that nurtures decision-making, that encourages measured risks as a method of stretching oneself.  Instead of killing the risk-taker when they stumble such organizations seek to stretch the capabilities of their employees by encouraging them to do more than they thought themselves capable.

Remember, it’s only a risk if there’s a chance of failure.  Employees who are not afraid of making decisions, of standing up for themselves, of taking a risk for the good of the organization – they should be valued, not criticized or otherwise penalized.

In an atmosphere free of threats and quicksand the leader can emerge and thrive – to the betterment of the company and the employees.