Billie’s description of their workplace and boss was shocking. They worked over 12-hour days 6 days a week and so did their colleague, Sam.

The two were doing the compensation work for more than 5,000 employees. Compensation included all things base pay related, all incentives (bonus, sales commissions as well as LTI), and stock administration.

How complex was their employer? It was a global company with employees in more than 10 countries and about $3B in annual revenue.

Billie and Sam had a boss (I hesitate to call them a leader) who didn’t care about the compensation work being resourced appropriately.

The boss didn’t pitch in and plan the work. He didn’t learn about the details or how the work was done. He didn’t help them prioritize or renegotiate deadlines and deliverables. He would disappear and be out of the office with no notice.

He was extremely good at taking credit for the work and miracles that Billie and Sam created. His focus was on managing up and he didn’t care about the mess his team was dealing with each day.

Everything was a fire drill and there was no relief in sight. Eventually Billie and Sam left the company.

If your boss doesn’t care about you, the work that needs to be done, and is acting like your daily miracles are not meeting their expectations, run.

Dust off that resume and update your LinkedIn profile. Reach out to former colleagues and create your exit plan.

Ask others to watch for job openings that match your skills and experience.

Apply for open jobs and network like crazy. Set boundaries at work and strategically let some things fall through the cracks and fail.

Anything is better than doing the soul crushing work that your boss doesn’t really care about. And when you have a boss that doesn’t care about you and your well-being, that just makes it worse.

Where to Find Compensation Job Openings:

Justin Hampton has a comp only job board. Go to comptool dot com > Comp Jobs
Search on LinkedIn for “compensation manager” > United States. There are 773 openings today, 4 June 2024.

You have options. Lots of options so don’t stay where you are miserable.

#compensation #rewards #bonus #incentives #hr #humanresources #pay #LTI