Compensation Cafe

And The Oscar Goes To . . .

So many public debates on compensation and benefits in the last few years and so little accurate information.

Let's look at just two. Reporting on Lehman Brothers' cash compensation in 2008 incited personal threats to many who were not receiving compensation at all, but rather retention bonuses.The dollars were outrageous given a number of factors, but if the information we were discussing was actually accurate, the arguments about how to resolve the compensation issues may have made more sense to the public.

And though many of us are glad it happened, we are all still pretty vague on the benefits of Health Care Reform. Oh, we've got the picture on pre-existing conditions and adult children coverage. But can we describe Health Care in a paragraph and discuss the impact it will have on us and others? Doubtful. Neither the Administration nor the media has given us a clear, succinct way to talk about the value to each of us, or even the top three problems that Health Care Reform has solved for us personally or for the nation as a whole. 

As a communications expert in Total Rewards, I can't tell you how frustrated I feel when I know that my colleagues and I could straighten some of these things out in the space of a few 8 1/2" by 11" pages. And I'm ready to name names if anyone comes asking for help. Colleagues who could not only explain the ins and outs accurately and concisely, but also clarify what would frighten or confuse people and how to help people deal with these reactions.

Now we have the challenges and counter challenges about the over and under payment of salaries and benefits for state workers. Confusion reigns and misguided discussion abounds. For example, I recently heard a local reporter confidently tell someone that state workers are underpaid. How does she know? And what about the other rewards, funded by their state, that would be included on employees' total compensation statement? Don't they count, too?

Given the recent tenor of debates of this kind -- and looking at the disastrous indifference to respectful communication underway in a number of states -- I was pleasantly surprised to read Saturday's New York Times article, "In a Battle Over State Payrolls, Data Shows a Mixed Picture". They even ran a second, balancing article entitled, "Who's Paid More? Experts Can Disagree". 

Because The New York Times found a number of studies with competing and somewhat murky analyses of the issues, the Times decided to do its own analysis, with the help of demographers. The results yield,

" . . . a complicated picture, one that highlights the variation in pay from state to state and occupation to occupation, and one that does not fit neatly into a one-size-fits-all approach to cost cutting."

Not a surprise to those of us who work in this field.The reporters also acknowledge that,

"The census data analyzed by The Times do not include information on pensions and other benefits, which is crucial for a fuller comparison because public sector workers typically receive more in benefits than workers in the private sector do. California's corrections officers, for instance, can retire at 50 with pensions worth 90 percent of their salaries, an option open to very few private sector workers. New Jersey pays 92 percent of the cost of health care for its workers, much more than private companies typically pay . . ."

Here we have a newspaper and reporters, Michael Luo and Michael Cooper, who are making a sincere, information-based and thoughtful effort at a problem definition related to compensation and benefits. Their intention seems to be to help their readers understand enough to make their own (non-emotional) judgments. Perhaps with a plan that more thoughtful discussion will ensue.

I'd give Mike and Mike an Oscar! How about you?

They are illuminating the issues, using analysis and experts in an effort to be balanced, and showing that the issues are far from simple -- no matter what the various Governors want us to believe. In addition, the research that they sponsored ferreted out an interesting finding, especially for those of us in the compensation business.

"Less educated workers on state payrolls, however, tend to do better than their counterparts in the private sector. The median wages of state workers without bachelor's degrees are higher than those in the private sector in 30 states . . ."

Check out the article online and add an encouraging comment, will 'ya. The U.S. needs a lot more nominees for balanced, fact-based compensation and benefits communications on next year's red carpet. A Best Actor or Actress (or Best Writer), for all those who make every effort to speak to and about employees (or other groups of citizens) with respect, no matter what kind of pickle we find ourselves in. 

Margaret O'Hanlon is founder and principal of re:Think Consulting.  She has decades of experience teaming up with clients to ensure great Human Resource ideas deliver valuable business results.  Margaret brings deep expertise in total rewards communication to the dialog at the Café; before founding re:Think Consulting, she was a Principal in Total Rewards Communications with Towers Perrin.  Margaret earned her M.S. and Ed.S. in Instructional Technology at Indiana University. Creative writing is one of her outside passions, along with Masters Swimming.

Stock Option Moving Sale!

Everyone loves when a business or a family down the street has a moving sale. You have options to buy stuff at a discount even if you might not need it. Heck, sometimes you purchase something even if it might be out of fashion by the time you finally get around to using it. You convince yourself that the discount justifies buying things that you might even have owned and found not to work in the past. Maybe this time that type of skirt will look good on you. Maybe this time you will lose the weight and be able to wear that electric blue tuxedo to next year’s holiday party. When looking at the cheap prices, your “super-shopper” mind only sees the upside.

Over decade and a half dealing with them, I have come to view stock options like items at a moving sale. When the stock market is moving up everyone sees a bargain. Stock options appear to be an easy way to fill a hole in compensation levels. Grant options when the stock price is going up and soon they will be worth even more. What are you really buying? 

I have seen more and more companies rolling out stock options since the crash of the market in 2008.  As the market has started turning around, many companies have been working feverishly to get stock options granted “before it’s too late”. There are, of course, a few problems with this thought process.

1. We are generally pretty terrible at knowing when the market has started to go up…or down.
2. More than ever, stock prices (including yours) are moving on meta-data, not your individual performance.
3. The basic paradigm of employee stock option value was built during the Golden Decade of 1988-1999.

http://www.thumbcharts.com/1319/dow-jones-industrial-average-since-1913

Think about other clearance sales you have attended.  You get the deals at the end, but the chance of finding what you truly want, or more importantly need, can be very slim. The people who shop in the first couple of days are usually the only ones who get what their imaginations had envisioned when they heard about the upcoming sale. The late shoppers get home with a big bag of question marks. Damaged items. Wrong sizes. Or, colors that can only be worn under something black. I’m sure you know what I mean.

This time the big stock options moving sale started in June 2009. That’s when the stock market started going back up. Given the stock markets recent history of 3 year (or less) up and down cycles, stock options granted today may likely become fully vested well into a future down market. In other words, your options may be completely out of style by the time you planned for them to fit you.

All is not lost.  Before you go on a stock option shopping spree read my upcoming posting on March 8, 2011 titled “What Do You Do if You Don’t Like Your (Stock) Options”. I discuss how other equity instruments can be used to balance or replace stock options in the new world of share-based compensation. Until then shop carefully!

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.

Keeping Top Talent Happy and Productive: Part 2

If you read my post last week, you know that a foundation of externally competitive and internally equitable pay is the cornerstone of a total rewards package that will keep your top talent happy and productive. Now that you have a solid foundation (thanks to your compensation structure), you're ready to move on to the next component - variable incentives. Here's a list of five questions to get you thinking about variable incentive pay.

1. Do I have to pay variable incentives? No - in fact, approximately 40% of the respondents in a recent Payscale survey don't pay variable incentives. It depends largely on your industry. Among non-profits, only one-third of companies pay variable incentives. But the majority of companies in other industries do offer some kind of variable incentive pay.

2. How much should I be spending on variable incentive pay? There's no easy answer to this one. According to Payscale, on average, companies spent about 6% of their total payroll budget for 2010 on incentives. But there's a huge range - anywhere from 0% to 100%. 

3. Who should get variable incentive pay? Typically, executives, directors and managers get incentive pay. This group accounts for 84% of the employees who received variable incentive pay in 2010. But there's no reason to limit yourself - your only constraint is your creativity (and your budget!). Use variable incentives where they will achieve the most.

4. Should I use discretionary or non-discretionary incentives? The field is pretty evenly split on this one. About one third of respondents used discretionary only, another third used non-discretionary only, and the remaining third used both.Some argue that non-discretionary incentives are better motivators since they are granted only after specific goals or objectives are met.

5. What kind(s) of incentive pay should I use? The most common type in 2010 was an individual incentive bonus. This represents a change from 2009, when spot bonuses were the most common. Individual incentive bonuses are particularly popular with mid-sized companies - three out of every five included them in their incentive pay packages.

Here's the breakdown of who's paying variable incentives and what kinds of incentives they're using:

Variable incentives can be a useful component of an overall rewards package that will keep your top talent happy and productive. But the key to a successful variable incentive program is defining expectations in realistic and measurable ways. Goals should be attainable, profitable, and practical for both the employee and the organization. If not, disaster can ensue. Consider the case of the building design company who implemented an incentive pay plan to encourage its engineers to draft buildings under budget. One engineer earned a large incentive payment by scaling down the building's walls and ceillings by 6 inches. While he met the goal of coming in under budget, he didn't produce a very good building...

Stephanie R. Thomas is an economic and statistical consultant specializing in EEO issues and employment litigation risk management. For more than a decade, she's been working with businesses and government agencies providing expert EEO analysis. Stephanie has published several articles on examining compensation systems with respect to internal equity, and has appeared on NPR to discuss the gender wage gap. She is the host of The Proactive Employer, and is the founder of Thomas Econometrics. Follow her on Twitter at ProactiveStats.

Signs Your Employee Recognition Program Is in Trouble

I'm a consultant. I spend many hours and days with clients helping them evaluate their recognition practices and uncover areas for improvement. I’ve led more focus groups and workshops than I can count. All of that experience boils down to three basic observations of how to tell when your recognition program is in trouble:

1)    A visitor’s reaction to the general atmosphere upon crossing the threshold is, “I’m glad I don’t work here.”

I’m sure you’ve felt it before. That palpable attitude of demoralization, of “it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m just trying to survive another day.” This feeling is reflective of the cultural norm that has developed in the company, and can be influenced by greater cultural norms, such as discussed earlier this month by Compensation Café colleague Stephanie Thomas in a piece on compensation, cultural norms and the gender pay gap.

You may think you’re not be at a level or position to influence or change the company culture as a whole. But you can change the culture within your own cube or office space. You can make your area a safe haven, a respite where people know they will not be denigrated. Where, perhaps, they will even be appreciated. The more pockets of appreciation that open up, the more likely you can spread that attitude and culture more broadly. Start by saying, “Thanks!”

2)    A consultant is the first person to make a 28-year employee feel like his thoughts and opinions are valuable listened to.

Compensation Café colleague Jim Brennan wrote an excellent piece on Monday, “Who Owns Your Motivation,”  in which he makes a strong case that no one can motivate you. Only you can motivate yourself. Your behaviors, actions and attitudes are yours alone to choose and act on.

I agree with Jim 100%. You do choose your attitude every day. But don’t forget the attitude, actions and behaviors you choose to demonstrate affect far more than just yourself. You can also choose to thank a colleague for helping you out on a project, or perhaps not impeding you on a project. You can choose to tell teammate their idea has merit and should be investigated further.

You retain the power of recognition. You can make others feel valued and valuable. It’s as simple as expressing appreciation, gratitude and acknowledgement of excellent effort.

3)    Employees aren’t participating no matter how good you think your program is.

SmartBrief on Workforce ran the results of one of their weekly reader polls earlier this month in which they asked, “Is your incentive program effective?” Only a measly 15% agreed their program is effective. Another 38% felt it was only somewhat so. Lance Haun, commenting on the results, felt these were even high. These results mirror our own survey that found 85% of US workers like to have their efforts at work recognized, 41% are not satisfied with the level of recognition they receive for doing good work.

But, you may ask, we have an employee recognition program! What’s the problem? Susan Heathfield addressed this in a recent About.com post  responding to a reader query about a program in which coworkers nominated each other for monthly recognition to be received by one person. Not surprisingly, no employees nominated anyone. Click through to see Susan’s excellent answers to why this program failed, but bottom line – if people aren’t participating, you don’t have an employee recognition program. Regardless of what you think you’re providing.

What signs of a recognition program in trouble have you seen? What are your recommendations to fix such a program?

As Globoforce’s CMO & 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, Montreal and Boston. Follow Derek on Twitter at @globoforce.

Shock and Awe

When you first look to purchase compensation surveys for your international population, it’s going to be a real wake-up call.  For those accustomed to only US surveys you will find that the available data in many countries is more limited than what you’re accustomed to seeing, as are the number of companies involved.  What won’t be reduced though is the expense.  Quite the opposite.  If you have multiple countries to deal with, your budget for credible compensation data will likely become a multiple of your US experience.

When I worked overseas my budget for compensation surveys was 3-4 times my previous US budget – and I only had to worry about Europe.  What a shock that was – spending much more while receiving less.

Each country is a separate USA, a unique national entity having country-specific labor laws, employment regulations, tax structure, competitiveness challenges and variations of economic strength.  For each you will need a country-specific survey to assess the local competitiveness of your employees.

International HR practitioners will need to adjust their thinking to react effectively in smaller countries, where the working population is limited and so is the number of survey participants.  It will be difficult to slice data by geography, industry or employee segment, as the data points grow smaller and smaller with each criteria.  For example, a well-regarded Mercer survey for the Netherlands showed 81 participating companies, while the US survey totaled 500.

Availability of locally-grown survey data is another challenge.  I have tried to locate such sources, even those provided only in the local language, in order to create a greater “buy-in” sense from management, but with limited success.   As a result even global companies with non-US headquarters tend to use the multi-national consulting firms.

Accessing International Resources

Should you require information for international compensation practices, below are a number of useful sources, each of which can be tapped via a Google search.  Note: many of the non-US sources focus on limited employee segments or functional areas, which may limit their usefulness during a general search.

Should you only have a few positions (2-3) in a given country you can reduce costs through individual  pricing, vs. the purchase of an entire survey.  Having more than a few positions though, would render this tactic economically unfeasible.  A few notable sources (though others from the above list may also be able to help):

• Birches Group
• ORC
• ER Limited

Another effective strategy for reducing costs is to age current survey data forward, coupled with the use of biennial purchasing.  However, when using this strategy have a care to limit its use to countries with stable economies.  Using such standard growth figures would miss the mark in countries showing greater volatility.

The Cost of International Operations

Too many HR practitioners and their Managers fail to take into account the expenses involved in keeping their international compensation programs competitive, especially where the organization has a small employee footprint.  For companies new to the international scene, and for those with small populations in several countries, the shock of survey costs could be daunting.  Many times the result is a reluctance to purchase the data, in some cases letting matters on the ground continue to fester – potentially overspending and / or creating debilitating equity problems for themselves.

Call it the cost of doing business, but if you’re going to maintain effective operations overseas, and you want to provide a competitive reward package (of course you do), it would be unwise to shortchange the process by guesstimating or otherwise trying to make-do without credible information.

The cost of surveys is a fraction of the possible financial impact that could result from retaining non-competitive reward programs.

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.  With over 30 years Rewards experience 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. 

Image: Creative Commons photo by alex schweigert

Who Owns Your Motivation?

Does your motivation come from someone else?  Do you depend on others to supply your motivations?

Yesterday’s news du jour was the alarming story about the high school teacher whose personal blog containing a few complaints about today’s students led to her suspension.  The following statement by an ex-student of hers caught my attention.  The student agreed that the teacher’s overall comments were generally true but added, “It's a teacher's job, however, to give students the motivation to learn."

Huh?  Is motivation something you inject into people like gasoline?  Is motivation an externally-imposed energy source that an outside party must provide to you?  Or is that line of thought just another excuse of entitlement-minded people who seem to accept responsibility for nothing but their rights and privileges?  

Seems like almost every day brings another story of an unfortunate millionaire plagued with issues not of his or her own making.  It is never their fault.  The pitiable tales always seem to be expressed in admiring terms suitably reflective of the party’s victimization status.  “They fight addiction.” (They’re a cokehead.) “They struggle with family issues.” (They cheat shamelessly on their spouse.)  “They fight a disorder.” (They shoplift for amusement.)  They battle anger management issues.” (They beat their children.)   Every sympathetic statement is in the passive mode, showing that things are done to them.  “They were devastated by financial disasters.”  (They blew $25,000,000.)  They are neither actors in charge of their personal destinies nor agents who initiate their own choices but simply innocent pawns manipulated by whatever forces are imposed on them.  Something else forced them to a course of action.  Someone else is responsible for their behavior.  Does anyone else hear the faint echo of Flip Wilson’s immortal phrase, “The Devil made me do it!”? 

Oh, please.  Give me a break.

Granted, it has been many a decade since I took a psychology course, but that unfortunately prevailing attitude seems to fly in the face of every precept I ever learned or taught about the nature of human behavior.  This is quite disturbing on a number of levels.  People actually believe this.  Prominent personalities present the entitlement philosophy as an established fact.  It is so universally accepted as to be unworthy of comment.  Folks enter our work force after an entire lifetime of immersion in the pernicious concept that one need accept no responsibility for your own actions.  You don’t make choices; you only respond to stimuli. If your performance is defective, it is someone else’s problem because “they” are responsible for your behavior, not you.  But who is they?  It is us, right here.

Motivation is a lot to ask from a mere compensation program founded on principles that assume facts no longer found in real life.  With employees who think like this, those in our trade are assured of lifetime job security, because challenges will abound. 

My life needs seasoning.  Will someone pass the motivation, please?

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: Creative Commons Photo "Motivation" by Nono Fara

The Measurement Puzzle

Like many of my fellow compensation professionals, I am a fan of measurement - mostly.  Without measurement, it is difficult to achieve the objectives most organizations set out for spending their pay dollars well.

And yet measurement can present us with a double-edged sword.  Carelessly yielded, it can cut us... badly.  Many of us in the business of measuring and rewarding performance - be it individual, team or organizational - have learned the hard way that measurement has its limits.  That we must recognize and respect its boundaries.

An overemphasis on measurement can backfire.  In our zeal to throw the measurement net as widely as possible, we are tempted to focus on the more easily measurable things rather than the right things.  We risk undermining the very things we mean to encourage - particularly when we begin tying rewards to those measurements.

And yet, limits and risks aside, I think measurement will play an increasingly central and critical role in managing today's - and tomorrow's - workforce.  The reasons I think this include the following:

Business success and creating any kind of competitive advantage increasingly demands the effective deployment of people.  It's tough to make this happen without solid metrics, especially in a world where...

Today's workforce is more diverse and remote than ever before.  Work teams are spread across generations, locations, even time zones and oceans.  They include part-timers, contract employees and telecommuters.  They increasingly depend on technology - rather than face to face interaction - to communicate and coordinate their efforts.  The days of work teams that can be managed via direct physical contact and oversight may be disappearing.

Today's workers, therefore, must increasingly be managed by results.  Which takes measurement.  Without measurement, without clear performance standards and defined objectives, performance management becomes too tied to a manager's direct observation, judgment and discretion.  In this scenario, workers are dependent on their manager's personal cues and feedback to know whether they are doing well or poorly, whether they should stay the course or rethink their approach to their responsibilities.  This is not only impractical, it sucks any sense of empowerment, autonomy and self-mastery out of the workplace.

To measure or not?  Some of us will always be conflicted about measurement in the workplace - and frankly, I think that's a good thing.  A healthy dose of skepticism will work well for us, forcing us to balance and reconcile the positive effects and capabilities of measurement with its darker side ... in all our efforts.

Ann Bares is the Editor of Compensation Café,  Author of Compensation Force and Managing Partner of Altura Consulting Group LLC, where she provides compensation consulting services to a wide range of client organizations.  She earned her M.B.A. at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School, enjoys cooking and reading in her spare time.  Follow her on Twitter at @annbares.

Image courtesy of healnh.org

Keeping Top Talent Happy and Productive: Part 1

According to a recent Payscale survey, the primary goal of compensation for most companies in 2011 is retaining top talent. More than 60% of survey respondents said this was the most important compensation objective.

Pay is usually not the primary reason people first start looking for a new job. But having a foundation of externally competitive and internally equitable pay is the cornerstone of a comprehensive rewards package that will keep your top talent happy and productive.

The key to external competitiveness and internal equity? Structure. What kinds of structures are companies using?

 Data courtesy of Payscale Compensation Practices Survey

The most commonly used structure is a salary range, where the ranges are either grade-based or job-based. But I'm most interested in the "other" category- Payscale describes it as neither salary range nor broad banding. Anywhere from 8% to 24% of organizations are using some "other" structure, depending on industry and company size. "Other" could include hybrid structures, proprietary structures, or no structures. We just don't have enough information to know for sure.

From my perspective, the fact that most companies are using salary ranges means they're on the right track for external competitiveness and internal equity. While problems can still occur if the structure is designed or executed sloppily, having a salary-range structure gives the best chance of being competitive and equitable. 

Once the cornerstone of base pay is in place, it's time to think about incentive pay. In my next post, we'll talk about the kinds of incentive pay companies are using to keep their top talent happy and productive.

Stephanie R. Thomas is an economic and statistical consultant specializing in EEO issues and employment litigation risk management. For more than a decade, she's been working with businesses and government agencies providing expert EEO analysis. Stephanie has published several articles on examining compensation systems with respect to internal equity, and has appeared on NPR to discuss the gender wage gap. She is the host of The Proactive Employer, and is the founder of Thomas Econometrics. Follow her on Twitter at ProactiveStats.

The Hidden Cost of Work

Most companies - even those that claim people are their biggest asset – focus on capital productivity rather than workforce productivity.  In other words, most business leaders can tell you what the workforce costs but not how much the actual work costs.

According to Harvard Business Review article The Surprising Economics of a People Business standard capital performance measures are misleading when it comes to measuring overall performance, especially in companies that create value with people: 

“Companies mistakenly focus on capital productivity rather than employee productivity and rely on capital-oriented metrics, such as return on assets and return on equity.  These aren’t much help in assessing a people business, as they tend to mask weak performance or indicate volatility where it doesn’t exist.”

This tendency is strengthened in companies with fewer capital assets, because even a small increase in productivity has a disproportionately large impact on return on assets. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
Despite the fact that a slight increase in productivity can dramatically increase shareholder value, most salaried employees work in a black box from a financial reporting perspective.  As long as the work gets done, no one notices if employees spend 30% of their time on administration, redundant data entry or unnecessary meetings because it doesn’t cost extra. . . which leads to the erroneous conclusion that it doesn’t cost anything.

Ignoring the cost of work leaves a company vulnerable to wasted capacity and lower engagement if employees find themselves working longer hours for the same pay.  Lack of insight into workforce performance may also pose a problem from a financial reporting perspective in the near future: OMG Moment for Talent Management Leaders is Coming.

(You have to appreciate the irony: For years everyone’s been accusing HR of lacking business skills, but HR may still have the last laugh about how Finance doesn’t get people…)

Of course, you can’t measure the cost of work unless you also track the work being performed and how much time people spend on different tasks, at least in broad categories such as projects, company goals, R&D, customer service, administration, meetings, etc. 

Sounds like a tough sell?  A friend of mine who managed a team of salaried employees described introducing time sheets like this:

‘At first they hated it because it was another administrative task.  But soon they really liked it, because it helped them demonstrate why they were having challenges meeting deadlines and where our processes forced them to waste time.  And we were able to use that information to help them be more efficient.’

With better information about how people work, you can start measuring the cost of work.  You can analyze work across the company, i.e., who's  working on what, how much time is spent by project or department and whether the work supports business goals.  You can better identify skills gaps and determine whether it would be more cost effective to contract needed skills, develop them in house or hire more people.  And you can see at a glance which teams are the most efficient and productive.

Most importantly, you can use the information to improve workforce productivity, which – if you are successful - will also do nice things for your capital productivity.

Picture courtesy of webtrafficagents.com.

Laura Schroeder is a Compensation Strategist at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience 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 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.

Do You Love Your Employees?

As we all come down from Valentine’s Day chocolate sugar highs, think about the ways you may have expressed your care and devotion for your loved ones yesterday. Perhaps you went the traditional route of chocolate and flowers. Or maybe a touching card.

Just driving into work today, I heard several stories of Vicious Valentines – efforts gone horribly wrong:

1. The box of chocolates, half eaten
2. The box of chocolates, given to a diabetic from a spouse… of several years
3. The obviously last minute feather “rose” from the corner gas station/convenience store
4.  Nothing done at all for someone who enjoys little statements of love on a holiday such as this
5. An extravagance of presents given to someone who had nothing to give in return

Yesterday, the talk around the office was, of course, about the pretty bouquet on Susie’s desk and the chocolates Mary was sharing with others. When I commented on one colleague's bouquet of stunning roses, she told me, “Oh, yes. John is so good about it now that he understands my love language.”

Of course, I had to ask. Apparently, we each have a “language” in which we receive love, whether it be gifts, or acts of service (like changing the oil or doing the laundry), or direct expressions of love (cards, etc.) But if your love language is “receiving gifts” and your significant other only speaks “acts of service,” then you will feel unloved even as your mate is trying his or her best to demonstrate their love.

The same is true with our employees. We often think we are showing them love – recognizing and appreciating them and their efforts – when in fact we may be speaking our own language of recognition and not that of the employee. We could be insulting and even reducing the productivity of employees by ignoring their preferences in favor of our own.

This season, let’s consider ways we can turn those vicious valentines into Victorious Valentines for our employees. Think of your team members or those you work with every day. Think about their personalities and work styles. Consider their preferences, not your own prejudices, for giving and receiving recognition in the workplace.

Options include the obvious, but perhaps also some you have not considered before:

1. Additional training, learning and development opportunities – good for those who are always seeking to know more as they grow in their role and how they can be more productive
2. Promotion – good for those who see advancement as the only true mark of appreciation for a job well done
3. Raises – good for the majority as we’ve conditioned employees to expect raises annually, but realize the proportion of the raise will be far more significant for those who like to “keep score” than for others
4. Public praise and acknowledgment –good for those who enjoy the esteem of their colleagues and like being “up in front”
5. Private praise and appreciation – good for those who are perhaps more shy, who prefer to stay to back, even as they rack up success after success
6. A sincere “thank you” – good for everyone. We all enjoy knowing that that our work is noticed, appreciated and valued by those around us.

All of these (and more) are good options – as long as the recipient’s preferences are the primary consideration. If not our love, let’s at least show our appreciation and esteem for our colleagues today.

As Globoforce’s CMO & 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, Montreal and Boston. Follow Derek on Twitter at @globoforce.