I am always surprised when I talk to leaders, and they don’t have an answer to this question.

Even if you don’t have a compensation philosophy that was discussed at length, written down, and approved, you have one.

It just isn’t formal. 

When I started doing compensation work in the 1990s, I was excited to learn something new. My manager taught me how to make good decisions when using salary survey data to market price jobs.

I also spent time interviewing managers and employees to understand what was written in a job description. And then I revised the job descriptions to ensure they accurately portrayed the jobs.

It was the perfect blend of writing and numbers to match my interests and develop my skills.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom." --Viktor Frankl

Before you speak THINK:

It’s not only what you know but who you know and how you get the work done that matters.

I have a coaching client who is great at their job. They can tell me what they delivered and why it matters to their employer.

We are writing their value stories so they can use those talking points in a discussion with their VP about getting a promotion and pay raise.

Do you trust the data you pull from your systems? Do you spend a lot of time cleaning up data to make it easy to use in your analyses?

My team and I spend a lot of time cleaning up employee and job data from various systems.

We spend time trying to figure out why the job title on the job description document isn’t the same as the job title of the employee in the HCM system.

It is especially great when I don’t have to create them. (Thank you Christine Hendrickson!) I attended a webinar today about the EU Pay Transparency Directive and how employers should be preparing to meet the requirements.  

Here is a link to Syndio’s EU Pay Transparency Cheat Sheet: https://synd.io/blog/eu-pay-transparency-cheat-sheet/

Key Webinar Takeaways:

Today I am calculating location specific base salary ranges in 5% increments for an employer client. They use ranges that go from National up to 25% and down to -35%.

What are the range spreads? 36% - 60%

Here is my question: What do you think about using one set of pay grades and base salary ranges based on National data? (This employer has all employees working in the U.S.)

It's great when you wake up on a Monday and look forward to the week ahead. The people and work you'll be focused on have you smiling.
 
You feel like you will be challenged and get to be creative. You get to use your strengths over and over to make a difference.
 
You'll have conversations with people who are interested in solving problems in a way that is healthy and focused on balancing the needs of all parties involved.

How many of these do you have?

* Leave little to chance: plan and practice

* Be curious, patient, and persistent

* Listen, listen, and then listen some more

Are you getting left out of meetings?

Are decisions being made without your input and in the past, you would have been involved?

Are some of your job duties being taken away and given to someone else?

Have you had a career development conversation and then your manager started acting differently?

Words can heal or they can hurt.

They can inspire you to act or destroy your motivation.

They can create a vision for the future or crush it.

Words and actions can build and sustain relationships. Or they can cause distrust and suspicion.

When I was in my early twenties and just starting my career, I asked my manager what classes I should take to continue to grow and learn.  I focused on getting my CCP or Certified Compensation Professional designation.

Then I started taking courses that were aligned to my interests outside of my current job as a Compensation Analyst. 

I don’t believe that you can have work and life balance. I do believe you can choose how to focus your time and energy.

And that with limited time and energy each of us gets to decide what is most important.

Base Pay:

·       Provide security and address short-term needs.

·       It provides employees with a guaranteed minimum level of compensation for their work.

COMPETITIVE? Employers use salary survey data to review the total compensation provided to employees by their competition for talent (aka other employers).

EQUITABLE? Employers perform pay equity audits to determine if pay disparities among employees performing substantially similar work exist. And if they do, employers research what caused the pay disparities and if they are based on legitimate business justifications or gender, race, ethnicity, age, etc. Then employers fix the pay disparities.

If you care about numbers and the story they tell, you should do this calculation.

If your gross annual revenue is $500,000 and you spend $100,000 on payroll for the year, your gross revenue to payroll percentage is $500,000/$100,000 = 0.20 or 20%.

Payroll is the total amount paid for labor, including wages, bonuses, benefits, employment taxes, insurance, and owner draws.

Getting a REWARD feels great at first. But with time the good feeling fades.

We each get a consistent reminder about why we work when our paycheck arrives.

While I would like to think that REWARDS like a bi-weekly paycheck and annual bonus are enough to motivate behavior and the results our employers want from us, I know that isn’t all that we need as human beings.

The assignment of grades to recognize competitive pay for jobs is different from the assignment of career levels which recognizes similar factors based on internal equity.

The separation of the two (external market and internal equity) allows an employer to pay competitively and recognize career paths for development conversations with employees.

As a business leader, you know that rewarding your employees is critical to achieving success.

If you set pay too high, you adversely impact the financial health of your company and limit your ability to hire the talent you need.

If you pay too little, you risk losing your most valuable employees and may fail to attract the best new talent.