Compensation Cafe

Job Evaluators Deserve Respect

I'd like to say a kind word about the job evaluators out there.  You know who I mean; those unappreciated, oft-criticized and generally disrespected Human Resource analysts who have been given (because no one volunteers) the thankless task of deciding which jobs in your organization are more or less important than others.

These practitioners are often viewed by those on the receiving end as displaying the behavior of a smug know-it-all, a blind follower of the rules, and having a general attitude of superiority, all wrapped up in a God complex.  Unless they agree with you.

They don’t receive Christmas cards. 

Somebody Has To Do It

But job evaluation is a task that needs to be done.  It's critically important to the organization.  Somebody has to establish order amidst the organizational chaos, to sort out a viable stepping stone hierarchy of jobs, from minor to major - and by how much.  For most of us it's Human Resources who establishes and maintains this internal objectivity; the alternative (having managers decide on their own jobs) would be like having the fox in the chicken coop.

Practically all companies of any size and complexity have some sort of a rating system to establish relationships between jobs and to maintain the credibility of that valuation process.  Employees are trained in the application of that rating system / process, and as such are charged with its administration.

For their part Managers don’t like evaluators; the independent valuation process keeps them from doing whatever they feel like.  The system keeps order, while maintaining equity and fairness through objective application.  Many Managers though, have a "what have you done for me lately?" mentality.  When they approve of an evaluation result, there's silence - because the result was obvious.  When they don't agree with the result the evaluator is a blind idiot.  So all the evaluators hear from their audience, their clients, is criticism, anger and disrespect.

True enough, mistakes can happen, especially in an inherently subjective process, but in a worst case scenario how far off can an evaluator be?  One grade?  Usually there's an appeal process.  As it is, evaluators can only work on the basis of the information provided (what they’re told) before the evaluation.  With no skin in the game, without even knowing the names of the affected employees, they try to do what's fair, and that's to report (to make the decision) as objectively as possible on the internal value of a job. To remain as unbiased as possible.

But the art of evaluation remains the butt of jokes, the kicking boy of every complainant out there who doesn't like the score.

• You don’t know the job as well as I (manager, employee, department head, etc.)

The criticism is that the evaluator can't possibly understand, and therefore accurately rate a job they're only told about, or after reading a job description.  So the (biased) view of the job holder(s) should sway the evaluation.

• Evaluation is subjective; so is the result.  Why should I trust you?

Every job evaluation system is subjective.  Even the point factor formulae are simply a compilation of a series of scored subjective decisions.  The key here is the standard and consistent application of criteria, no matter which job is being evaluated.

• Job descriptions are the problem

The forms used for evaluation purposes are criticized as old, outdated, inaccurate, incomplete and generally not reflective of what is truly going on.  However, this complaint is usually heard after the result is reported.

• Squeaky wheels get greased; outside pressures negate objectivity and credibility

Because of the subjectivity element evaluators are perceived of as easily manipulated by pressure points; politics, favored sons, avoiding controversy, want to be liked, etc.

Who would want such a job?  I didn't.  As my own HR career progressed I passed off this no-win responsibility as soon as I could.  It was like being the medieval tax collector, reviled by all - just for doing your job.  So I've been there, know what it's like to be responsible for making those decisions and facing the wrath (never the thanks) of angry managers and employees.

So give the job evaluators a break and cut them some slack.  They're doing the job that you wouldn't want.  They mean well, and they're doing the best they can under trying conditions.  Instead of criticizing them, help them to better understand the job being evaluated.

And next time around, send them a Christmas card.

Chuck Csizmar CCP is founder and Principal of CMC Compensation Group, providing global compensation consulting services to a wide variety of industries and non-profit organizations.  He is also associated with several HR Consulting firms as a contributing consultant.  Chuck is a broad based subject matter expert with a specialty in international and expatriate compensation.  He lives in Central Florida (near The Mouse) and enjoys growing fruit and managing (?) a brood of cats. 

Creative Commons image courtesy of Winnifredxoxo

Got Data?

I recently replied to a question on Focus.com about employee engagement and was intrigued by a response that criticized HR for their heavy handed control over salaries.

The example given for why this is a problem involved a highly skilled IT professional with four children who has reached the top of his salary grade at his current company.  There is apparently no possibility of increasing his salary although he has taken it upon himself to acquire marketable new skills and at least one other company has offered him more money.

No clue how this one’s gonna play out, huh?

I get it.  We all get it.  Salary ranges are there to promote fairness and reduce the administrative overhead created by exceptions.  These are good things.  But here’s this guy with hot technical skills about to walk because he has a family to support and earns less than the market is offering.  Not to mention that replacing him will be expensive in terms of recruiting, training and lost productivity - possibly more expensive than just paying him more in recognition of his market value.

It sounds like I recommend paying him more to keep him but I’m actually going somewhere else with this.  In fact, I’m a big fan of voluntary attrition because it feeds this Ponzi scheme we call ‘career development.’

My point is if the company is going to lose this person, lose him with intent.  In other words, if your company has a hard rule about salary ranges that’s fine as long as you have:

•    Analyzed which people are flight risks as a result.*
•    Calculated the cost of losing these people and having to replace them. 

*Warning signs include people who are already at the top of their grade, have dependents, possess critical skills, are solid or high performers, haven't had a salary increase or new opportunity in several years, have recently exercized stock options, are late submitting their self-evaluation and/or are frequently absent. There are other signs as well but these are the ones you can get at through your data.

Armed with this information you can evaluate whether it’s worth: 1) changing your policy; 2) creating a new salary grade for highly skilled people to ‘graduate’ into once they reach a certain level of expertise; or 3) doing nothing, but on purpose.

If you don’t possess this critical information about your workforce, an inflexible salary strategy is like a wall across an expressway that surprises people each time a car crashes into it.

OK, that analogy may have been too colorful.  My point is that rigid policy combined with lack of information does not a business strategy make.

At least, not a very good one.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

Laura Schroeder is a global talent specialist at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience envisioning, designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing global Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resources Practices from Cornell University.  Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in the US, Europe and Asia.  She lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, kick boxing (well, kicking things) and spending time with friends and family. If you want to read more from Laura, check out her talent management blog Working Girl or follow her on Twitter @WorkGal.

Who Needs "A Seat at the Table" When You Can Do This

I don’t need to cite for you the articles and blog posts arguing if HR is strategic or merely administrative. Or those discussing how HR can get a “seat at the table” (or even if it should).

The crux of the argument behind those statements is: “What is the role of HR? Where and how can HR make the most difference for the organization?”

And those are important conversations. Just yesterday, Harvard Business Review featured a discussion with Randy MacDonald, senior vice president of HR at IBM since 2000, and his beliefs that the HR function was too focused on administration.

"I have a fundamental belief that it's important to decide what is core and non-core. Administrative responsibilities, such as getting paychecks out on time, are not core. Attracting, retaining, and motivating employees are all core. In HR, we need to focus on what is important and get out in front of issues — not just be reactive. HR should look at the direction of the company and say, 'We need to be here right along with the business.'"

Now, most employees I know would say that getting their paycheck on time is central to their motivation and desire to remain with the organization. And I don’t think Mr. MacDonald is arguing that it is not. Rather, he is pushing HR to change IBM – at the individual employee level. These are three steps Mr. MacDonald had led to that end (quoting from the article):

• Delivered the new skills IBM needed at the front lines. HR reinvented the way it trained and developed talent.
• Fostered global teamwork. Randy MacDonald: “Over the past decade we moved from a multinational organization to a globally integrated enterprise with global standard processes.”
• Created a results-focused culture. HR can play a lynchpin role in building a performance culture: defining, collecting and analyzing data to understand whether employees are meeting their personal goals.

Training and development, teamwork, performance management – these are three approaches many consider core to HR, perhaps even “administrative” functions. But Mr. MacDonald and his team at IBM have elevated them far beyond “administrative” to truly strategic in that these functions now transform the culture of the organization, helping IBM “absorb more than 125 acquisitions since 2000, and integrate globally, saving $6 billion since 2005.”

When you have that kind of impact, what does it matter if you have a “seat at the table?”

As the new year kicks off amid news of an improving economy and jobs market, it would be wise for HR leaders to look at their “core” and “administrative” function through a new lens of company culture and strategy.

What are some of the tactical roles you or your HR team focus on today? Are you delivering at a strategic or administrative level? How could you adapt or change these functions to drive the culture of your organization?

As Globoforce’s Head of Strategic Consulting, Derek Irvine is an internationally minded management professional with over 20 years of experience helping global companies set a higher ambition for global strategic employee recognition, leading workshops, strategy meetings and industry sessions around the world. His articles on fostering and managing a culture of appreciation through strategic recognition have been published in Businessweek, Workspan and HR Management. Derek splits his time between Dublin and Boston. Follow Derek on Twitter at @DerekIrvine.

Prepare for Compensation Meetings Like an NFL Broadcaster

Like many of you, I have football games playing on my TV during most autumn Sunday afternoons. Also, like most of you, I  pay a lot attention to the big plays, but little attention to the broadcast itself. This past Sunday, for perhaps the first time ever, I focused on the incredible preparedness of the professionals producing the television events. It got me to thinking. What if compensation professionals prepared themselves in the same way? Our meetings with Executive Management and Compensation Committees would be short, enjoyable and incredibly effective.  More importantly, our programs would evolve more quickly and represent our companies more completely.

Consider any NFL broadcast. The announcers have spent all week studying the players and game plans of each team. Research assistants have put together statistics with such specificity that they make my wife laugh almost every weekend. “That pass sets the record for most passes to a running back, under 5’7” during the third quarter of a game in the twelfth week of an NFL season.” Cameras are set-up to cover the play from nearly every angle. They know where family members are sitting and where they’re from.

A great example of this attention to detail was a recent game in which Carson Palmer, quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, threw an interception that was run back for a touchdown. Almost immediately, there were replays from three or four different angles. There was nothing surprising here, just expected levels of great work.  Then came the doozey. Within 30-45 seconds of the play the announcers started talking about Mr. Palmer’s tendency to throw interceptions that were returned for TDs. While they spoke, a series of at least eight prior interceptions from the full length of his 8 -year career, played on the screen.

This meant that someone had just prepared for this unique opportunity. Carson Palmer has played more than 128 games in the NFL.  He has thrown 2,560 passes. Of these, eight or nine were intercepted and returned by the other team. Someone on the broadcast team gathered these into a package that was immediately accessible. The director knew the package was there. The researchers knew how to call it up on demand. The announcers were fed some statistical information to support their innate knowledge. And, in less than a minute, everything came together on screen in compelling support of this specific tendency.

Imagine if you were this prepared every time someone asked you about your compensation plans. “Hey, what’s the rule on Change-In-Control for the 2007 Stock Option Plan and does that conflict with the COO’s employment agreement that he received when we was hired at that company we acquired in 2009?” What if you had an immediate (correct) answer every time someone asked, “Why do we have that feature?” or “How much cash and equity should we offer a Senior Software Programmer, in Chicago, IL?”

If we all prepared and stayed organized like NFL broadcast teams, much of the stress of our jobs would be gone. The stress of leaving a meeting with more things to do than when you walked in.  The stress of providing the wrong, or no, answer in an executive meeting. The stress of correcting administrative errors due to assuming we knew a rule, rather then knowing the rule exactly.

Of course, we’ll never get to a point where we simply have a team of specialists to help us get prepared. We do not work in an industry where there is always accurate statistical data, or in a world where our rules are applied exactly the same way every time.  But, we can, and should, consider making this our goal and begin working toward achieving it.  You never know when that one thing that has only happened a couple of times in the past will happen again, but you would likely be compensated and respected more if you had a ready solution when it came up again.

Dan Walter is the President and CEO of Performensation an independent compensation consultant focused on the needs of small and mid-sized public and private companies. Dan’s unique perspective and expertise includes equity compensation, executive compensation, performance-based pay and talent management issues. Dan is a co-author of “The Decision Makers Guide to Equity Compensation” , “If I’d Only Known That” and  “Beyond Stock Options.” Dan is on the board of the National Center for Employee Ownership, a partner in the ShareComp virtual conferences and the founder of Equity Compensation Experts a free networking group. Dan is frequently requested as a dynamic and humorous speaker covering compensation and motivation topics. Connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @Performensation and @SayOnPay

Why Should I Help You?

Faced with critical skills gaps and an aging workforce, companies are looking for cost-effective ways to develop talent quickly.  One of the ideas in play is implementing mentoring and knowledge sharing programs... which is a great idea if you can get people to share what they know.

Unfortunately, in the majority of organizations there are more reasons for people not to share information.  They may have personal reasons, such as they dislike the person asking, they have no clue, or they just aren’t very helpful (which may be an engagement problem).  Or there may be organizational reasons, i.e., they fear losing leverage or influence, they are incented to focus elsewhere or they don’t have time.

People are naturally reluctant to give away any advantage, particularly in highly competitive environments and uncertain economic times.  Organizationally, companies must find ways to make sharing information a competitive advantage rather than hoarding information. 

Here are a few ways not to do that:

• Ask someone to mentor a high potential then promote the high potential over them.
• Ask an extremely busy expert to mentor a new hire without lightening their work load or recognizing them for their extra efforts.
• Assume 'social media’ will somehow magically inspire people to network and share knowledge in ways that benefit the organization.
• Ask someone to train their cheaper replacement. 

These strategies neglect any form of motivation for the knowledge sharers, such as recognition, development opportunities, measurable objectives or rewards.  In fact, in most of these scenarios the mentor is placed at a disadvantage by helping, which creates a misalignment of objectives.  As a result, some reluctant exchange of information may occur but it won’t transform the organization.

It really comes down to this: How do you get people to share what they know?

There are four key ingredients for making it work: 1) management attention; 2) measurement; 3) tools; and 4) rewards.  Let’s take a closer look at each of these:

1. Management attention - As my Café colleague Derek Irvine put it in his recent post The One Thing You Must Do…, if your top management team doesn’t care, why should anyone else?  For example, a large global organization I worked with had a formal mentoring program where each new employee was assigned to an executive, who was tasked with meeting the employee once a month and smoothing the waters with active sponsorship and sage advice.
2. Measurement - If you don’t have specific goals you're trying to achieve and don’t measure whether you achieve them, you're essentially just bumbling about. How about measuring new hire productivity to track mentoring effectiveness during on-boarding?  Or tracking top performers back to mentors to see which mentors foster the highest performance?
3. Make it easy - There are all kinds of tools out there to facilitate collaboration, networking and knowledge-sharing.  Make sure people have access to them and monitor what actually works and gains traction.  Additionally, make mentoring and knowledge sharing part of the program with clear goals and objectives and - if appropriate - reduced workloads.  
4. Rewards - Deep down most people want to feel useful to others but you can encourage mentoring behaviors by recognizing and rewarding them, as well as ensuring that the best development opportunities go to people who have clearly demonstrated an attitude of service. Because those are the people who will scale and do the most for the organization.

Bottom line: As with anything you're trying to achieve organizationally, people will respond to what you SHOW is important, not what you say is important. 

Laura Schroeder is a global talent specialist at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience envisioning, designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing global Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resources Practices from Cornell University.  Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in the US, Europe and Asia.  She lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, kick boxing (well, kicking things) and spending time with friends and family. If you want to read more from Laura, check out her talent management blog Working Girl or follow her on Twitter @WorkGal.

Turkey Talk: Squandering Talent

According to my husband, this year’s German soccer team is really good.  The players are also quite young and you wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of performance from such an inexperienced team.  But as it turns out, they have more hours playing soccer under their belts than many an older player.

Soccer being the fabulously profitable international business that it is, it’s not uncommon to scout for and train soccer players at an early age to ensure a steady pipeline of soccer talent.  Then they train like mad and some drop out until only the ‘best’ remain and there’s your new lineup.  (I’m simplifying here and glossing over all kinds of personal drama but you get the idea – find them young, weed out all but the very best, voila.)

I wouldn’t normally ponder whether the selection process for a sport I don’t follow could be improved but over the weekend I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  According to him, an overwhelming percentage of promising young soccer players have birthdays clustered soon after the age cutoff date.  That’s because if you’re looking for a group of kids who turned ten in 2011 with a cutoff date January 1st, a kid born on January 2nd  has a relative advantage over a kid born in the same year on December 31st in terms of maturity, coordination and strength.

And if we fast forward a decade, we’ll find more world class soccer players born in the first few months after the cutoff date than in the last few months.

No surprise, really.   The chosen few get thousands of hours of training and experience under their belts by the time their voices change.  The others go home and maybe keep playing on their local community league until they grow up and get a job, at which point they only play Thursdays after work until their knees give out.  They might even have had the stuff to go the distance but once you miss your window of opportunity there’s no way to catch up on those thousands of hours of practice. 

And it turns out that thousands of hours of practice (about 10,000) are what differentiates between world class and average.  Natural talent plays a role - think of it as the cover charge to get into the world class club - but it’s not a substitute for 10,000 hours of practice.

I read all this and thought, ‘OK, so kids born further from the cutoff date rarely get to play professional soccer.  Sad for them, of course, but if the national team wins the system works.’ 

Then the phrase squandered talent caught my eye, which bothered me because businesses and countries are supposedly facing a global critical skills shortage even as I write this.  And let’s face it, soccer isn’t the only place arbitrary cutoff criteria weeds talent out early.  What about schools, succession plans, high potential programs and recruiting, just to name a few?

The point is this:  1) There’s a lot more natural talent out there than gets developed properly; and 2) ANYONE possessing a basic minimum of the natural ability can become a high performing expert with training, opportunity and experience.  In other words, once someone reaches a minimum level of ability necessary to do a job, someone slightly 'better' won't necessarily perform better over time. 

This has several business implications:

• There’s plenty of talent out there, it’s experience and opportunity that are missing.
• Typical succession, pay for performance, high potential and recruiting programs weed out talented people in favor of those believed to be slightly more talented. 
• Studies have shown that random selection within a group that meets minimal skills and educational criteria produces better results than trying to find the ‘very best’ people.
• Businesses might therefore be better served by trying to develop as many people as possible rather than trying to develop as few as possible.

Bottom line: Between the perfect employee and the, ah, turkey are plenty of people who have the potential to be great.  We just have to stop weeding them out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Picture courtesy of flickr.com.

Laura Schroeder is a global talent specialist at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience envisioning, designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing global Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resources Practices from Cornell University.  Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in the US, Europe and Asia.  She lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, kick boxing (well, kicking things) and spending time with friends and family. If you want to read more from Laura, check out her talent management blog Working Girl or follow her on Twitter @WorkGal.

Is Employment a Civil Right?

Is a job one of the basic American civil rights?  If not, will it become one? The prospect is not as unlikely as it might seem.

The new American Jobs Act contains a section that would create a situation where being unemployable would qualify you as a protected class.

Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2011 - Makes it an unlawful practice for certain employers to: (1) publish an advertisement or announcement for a job with provisions indicating that an individual's status as unemployed disqualifies the individual for employment, or that the employer will not consider or hire an individual for employment based on such status; (2) fail or refuse to consider or hire an individual because of such status; or (3) direct or request that an employment agency take an individual's status into account to disqualify an applicant for consideration for employment, or when screening or referring employees.

It does make a certain amount of sense.  There is a great amount of unassailable logic to the proposition that a lack of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) is a disadvantage in the 21st Century because knowledge workers dominate the world economy.  Could the absence of essential competencies be considered a disability?  Lack of employable talents definitely will doom you to linger at the back of the line in modern society. 

This is a tough time for the unemployed and there are more of them than ever before, as we experience the highest jobless rate since 1982.  The percentage of employed working-age Americans has fallen five percent to 58% in the last four years.  There are six million long-term unemployed and their average duration of joblessness is over three years.  College grads fare better, with less than half the 9.6% unemployment rate of mere high school graduates.  Almost 20% of our total workforce is underemployed (seeking a full-time job).

Thus, there is a political as well as an economic justification for government to actively intervene to help those seeking a full-time job.  What is needed to improve their lot?  The first step for those who spend time in research typically is to determine the nature of the problem.

Anecdotal information from discussion boards suggests that many recruiters pass over unemployed applicants.  Candidates without current jobs complain that they seem to be disqualified from serious consideration simply by their curse of being currently unemployed.   Some recruiters have privately admitted being instructed to ignore resumes from the jobless. 

On the WorldatWork compensation discussion board (membership may be required for access), I recently posted a question, “Do you discount salary offers to jobless candidates?  Do those applicants for job openings who are unemployed receive the same starting salary offer as those recruited from other jobs?  If you offer them less, then you discount their entry rate and Yes would be your answer to the question in the Subject line.  If you treat them the same as all other applicants, then No would be your answer.  A simple yes or no will suffice.“ 

Within two days, a score of tradecraft professionals responded with No answers.  Of course, they noted that unemployed applicants were less able to use their present remuneration package as a goad to inspire handsome buy-outs of their status quo income situation, but none admitted to treating jobless candidates as a class subjected to a discount.  Granted, those who are unemployed have less negotiating power, but they were not given disparate negative treatment.  There does not seem to be any noticeable resistance to considering jobless candidates any differently than those pirated away from current employers.  Yet, those out of work tend to remain out of work.  Their numbers grow and their economic distress continues to become more painful.

Either there is no work undone that needs doing or the available talent isn’t considered able or available to do that work.  Job boards still prosper and employment agencies show no sign of going out of business (quite the contrary), so it appears that there is a mismatch between the supply and the demand:  those available to work are not chosen for the openings that remain unfilled.

The quick short poll on entry rate practices shows that employers are not short-changing the jobless in their salary offers.  No one has yet determined exactly why companies are refraining from even making offers to jobless candidates; nor has any evidence been disclosed to reveal any bias against unemployed people as a group.  The reason they remain out of work is not always clear.  It would seem important to answer that question before a legislative or regulatory solution is imposed to solve an undefined problem.   The last thing this struggling economy needs is another iatrogenic program:  no one wants a hasty damaging solution to a problem that does not exist or a fix that creates more problems than the issue it was intended to solve.

The question really is not whether declaring the unemployed a protected class is a good idea or a bad idea, but simply, what will the effect be on the human resource profession if it does occur?

Please share your thoughts....

E. James (Jim) Brennan is Senior Associate of ERI Economic Research Institute, the premier publisher of interactive pay and living-cost surveys. Semi-retired after over 40 years in HR corporate and consulting roles throughout the U.S. and Canada, he’s pretty much been there done that (articles, books, speeches, seminars, radio/TV, advisory posts, in-trial expert witness stuff, etc.) and will express his opinion on almost anything.

Image courtesy of thesocialleader.com

Either Put Me in Charge or Let Me Be a Lackey. I'm Fine with Either, But I Can't Do Both.

A friend recently updated their status with the title to this article. Ironically, I saw it just as I got off a call with a client who  was explaining that somehow she was expected to serve as both the strategic visionary and tactical processor for her company’s multi-national LTIP programs. The simple request in my friends status update seemed reasonable, well thought-out and familiar. As we traverse the crags of an uneven recovery, companies have found it difficult to create compensation plans that perform as expected. As budgets continue to be bound by uncertainty, companies have been unwilling, or unable, to hire tactical help. This leaves compensation departments in a quandary. When should we strategize and when should we make things happen?

For those of you who are feeling like your personality and activities are being split down the middle, I'd like to suggest a small exercise. Take 4 hours and block it off your calendar. (I know you don’t have 4 free hours, but trust me this may really help.) Let’s just pretend you blocked off 10:00am-2:00pm tomorrow.

• 10:00-10:30: Spend the first 30 minutes making a list of every strategic idea you would address if you were in charge of everything, but not responsible for doing any of the tasks. Rank based on compliance, urgency, cost and benefit.  Call this your “Strategy List”.
• 10:30-11:00: Focus the next 30 minutes making a list of every process you would improve if you didn’t have to worry about planning, administration or reporting tasks. Rank based on compliance, urgency, cost and benefit. Call this your “Tactics List”.
• 11:00-11:30: The next 30 minutes make list of all the tasks you would do if you were never interrupted by other things. Think about the minutiae and get granular. Rank based on compliance, urgency, cost and benefit. Call this your “Tasks List”.
• 11:30-12:00: Go through the Strategy, Tactics and Tasks lists and mark each item that ONLY someone with your skill set or better (not you) can get done. Then mark those that can be done by someone with a lesser skill set.
• 12:00-12:30:  Look at the remaining items. These are the things that you believe ONLY YOU can accomplish. Is this list realistic? Can anything be moved to one of the other lists? When this list is down to two or three items, you are set for a promotion.
• 12:30-2:00: Go have a nice lunch with a friend.  Celebrate that you just figured out how to put yourself in charge or be a lackey.

A very smart manager once told me “irreplaceable is unpromotable.” She made it clear that as long as I was the only one who could do certain things, I would remain the only one doing those things. Turns out, it’s basic logic. If you want to stop doing things on your list, you must first figure out a way for others to do them (or to make the items go away altogether.)

Look at your lists again. Which things do you really want to be doing? Of everything that’s left, can you train, hire, outsource, bring in consulting or temporary staff to get them done? If yes, put together a business case for exactly that. If no, keep working on your lists until the answer is yes. I have seen people change things in a week or two and I have seen cases where the changes were so large or numerous that it would take 6-12 months to get them done. I have never seen company where the changes were impossible.

The key is this: If you want to be in charge, the first step is figuring out how to be in charge. Regardless of whether you want to be a lackey or in charge, the first step is to define what those terms mean. The next step is to clearly communicate to those who can help make the change. This may be your boss, colleagues, or the staff working for you. The key is to show what’s in it for them (WIIFM). If they see the personal benefit, they may be inclined to help.  If you communicate things as a plea for help, you may get short-term traction, but nothing will really change.

So, put yourself in charge or make yourself the lackey, but only you can ensure that you’re not both.

Dan Walter is the President and CEO of Performensation an independent compensation consultant focused on the needs of small and mid-sized public and private companies. Dan’s unique perspective and expertise includes equity compensation, executive compensation, performance-based pay and talent management issues, Dan is on the board of the National Center for Employee Ownership, a partner in the ShareComp virtual conferences and the founder of Equity Compensation Experts a free networking group. Dan is frequently requested as a dynamic and humorous speaker covering compensation and motivation topics. Connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @Performensation and @SayOnPay

Where Has All the Talent Gone?

According to The Global Talent Index Report published by the Economic Intelligence Unit there is a global talent shortage.

Although the US fares somewhat better than other regions due to strong universities and a comparatively deregulated work environment, even in the US there are more open positions than can be filled due to scarce talent.

Quite a few, in fact.  Despite the high unemployment rate, there are still 2.5 million jobs in the U.S. for which employers are actively recruiting but have been unable to fill due to lack of ‘hard’ skills or industry experience, according to Deloitte’s 2010 Talent Pulse Survey. 

Kinda makes you go, 'Geez, just hire someone!'

And in fact, that may start happening, along with some other interesting developments.  In a recent post Employment Paradox: Unemployment, Skills Gaps, Difficulty in Hiring, Josh Bersin explains how larger companies are considering multiple strategies to bridge the global talent gap:

1. Integrating recruiting and talent management – Increased talent mobility will allow companies to optimize how people are deployed and improve engagement by providing new opportunities.
2. Formal employee development – This will enable companies to hire younger, less experienced workers without having to wait - and pay a premium - for the perfect candidate.
3. Informal learning and mentoring – Mentoring and peer learning programs will help companies ‘bottle’ internal expertise so that new employees can ramp up more quickly.
4. Technology investment – Modern, on-demand learning platforms can help build deep skills faster.
5. Re-thinking recruiting – To find the right people and recruit passive candidates, companies are considering how to better leverage social networks.
6. Improved contingent worker management – If 20% of the workforce is made up of contingent labor - a number that is expected to double over the next decade - it's essential to understand the costs and capabilities of this significant workforce segment. 

These strategies will help bridge the skills gap while improving engagement and retention.  However, there are two additional items worth considering:  

1) Soft Skills

The Global Talent Index Report also identified a critical shortage of soft skills such as creativity, agility and versatility. The large number of open positions in the US makes me wonder if companies are letting people with strong soft skills walk because they don’t have the exact industry experience sought.  Since it’s somewhat easier to acquire a new skill than it is to acquire a new personality, it may be time for an assumption check. 

2) Incentives

A manager’s most important job is arguably developing people but that’s rarely what they are incented to do.  Getting managers on board with the talent development strategies companies are considering may require additional training or re-thinking how managers are compensated. 

Companies should also give serious consideration to how mentors will be recognized or rewarded for sharing their expertise, as I wrote in What's In It for Bob?   Mentoring programs and peer training work best if the program is well thought out and your mentors want it to succeed.

You could also do this, but I wouldn't unless you want your top talent gone to competitors, every one:

 

Picture courtesy of workforce-vision.com.

Laura Schroeder is a global talent specialist at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience envisioning, designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing global Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resources Practices from Cornell University.  Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in the US, Europe and Asia.  She lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, kick boxing (well, kicking things) and spending time with friends and family. If you want to read more from Laura, check out her talent management blog Working Girl or follow her on Twitter @WorkGal.

Curiosity May Kill Cats, but It Saves Compensation Professionals

Do you ever wonder why you are reading this article? No one is paying you to read this. Your boss will probably never even know that you read it. Why take a few more minutes out of your busy day for something that only you truly value?  The answer is simple. You are a curious person. (Fair warning this is a “soft” article with no statistics or compensation rules)

We are always told that curiosity kills cats. The theory is that it gets cats into trouble that eventually cause their demise.  I would augue that it does the opposite for compensation professionals. Compensation is as much an art as it is a science. This means that even though there are great ways to do almost everything, there are very few absolute ways to do anything. It is curiosity that can make, or break, someone in our profession.

We all must keep up with rules and regulations. This requires less curiosity than it does persistence. Sometimes new rules require us to change processes, communications or procedures, but we are seldom forced to change our compensation philosophy or basic structure. Curioisty is much bigger than compliance.

Curiosity is the key to evolution. It’s not just learning about your peers or industry trends. It is about digging in and figuring out how you can apply a mix of new knowledge and best practices to give your company, its shareholders and employees an edge. The need to know new things and explore different paths is what allows you and your company to stay ahead of the competition.

The best compensation departments aren’t checking to see if their programs are correct.  They explore new paths so they can be better. Many of us look to justify our past decisions.The very best look for why they aren’t making new decisions. Given a choice to act on what they already know and the potential for new information and improvement, they choose improvement. These are the companies who create the next “best thing.”  They are also the professionals who we find publicly celebrating, instead of defending, the results of their programs. 

So how is curiosity inspired? While it is against our professional nature, curiosity is seldom motivated by compensation. It is most often motivated by the personal and professional change it can bring. You and everyone on your staff want to know that your ideas count.It is easy to create this culture.

Provide an open environment where the following phrases are outlawed:

1)     We’ve never done it that way.

2)     That probably won’t work.

Replace those curiosity-killing statements with the following questions:

1)     How would you see that working for us?

2)     Can you do a test run and show me the impact?

Once you have an environment where curiosity is valued and recognized, your staff will instantly seem much smarter and more engaged. You will find yourself working amongst solution creators and game changers and your own work will improve as well. Curiosity is the single catalyst that costs nothing and inspires anything. It may not be ideal for felines, but it does wonders for compensation professionals.

Dan Walter is based in San Francisco, CA and is the President and CEO of Performensation an independent compensation consulting firm focused on the needs of companies not in the Fortune 1000. Dan’s unique perspective and expertise includes equity compensation, executive programs, performance-based pay and talent management issues, Dan is on the board of the National Center for Employee Ownership, helps create ShareComp, a virtual conference addressing equity compensation and founded Equity Compensation Experts a free networking group with more than 1,100 members. Dan is also in high demand as dynamic and humorous speaker. Connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @performensation.