The Dinosaurs Among Us

Do any of these employee-types sound familiar to you?  Perhaps you've come across one or more in the hallways at work.  Perhaps you work with someone like this. Perhaps you work for someone like this.

• The technocrat with the pocket protector and ready access to multiple survey sources for analytical data on any given subject.  Always has a technical and often convoluted answer to questions.  You may not understand them.

• The employee who administers a point-factor job evaluation system or performance management program like the processes are an untouchable, sacrosanct bible.  Definitions and point factors have been memorized and can be quoted at will.

• The employee who understands more about compensation methodology and data manipulation formulae than the business dynamics of the company. They can explain a regression line and standard deviations faster than they can describe the main product or service of the company.

One dimensional thinking

These are the folks who have their eyes pointed straight down, walking the cautious step by step, not having a clue or a care as to what's on the horizon. They're heavily engaged with the technical aspects of their craft, with compensation methodology, and seem to their coworkers to be in a fog about everything else. They're the so-called subject matter experts, at least as far as their technical analysis can take them.

But at the same time they may not be able to relate to the day-to-day challenges faced by line managers.  Instead of being problem solvers they find their comfort zone as data junkies who can show you the numbers, can point at the charts, but not necessarily can they suggest what to do next. 

Don't get me wrong, we do need these employees, as they serve a useful purpose to help understand the intricacies of our payroll, the competitive marketplace and the financial impact of various pay decisions.  But when we let impersonal analytics dictate our strategies, our day-to-day tactics in dealing with our employees, we tend to lose a quality of humanity that is critical to building within our organization a successful workplace culture. 

In order to manage compensation, not simply administer the programs, practitioners need to understand the impact that the analytics can have on employees, on business operations and of course on the financials.  And a grasp of possible unintended consequences.

Time marched on

It wasn't that many years ago that the compensation technocrats described above played a strong hand within their little kingdoms.  Management was mesmerized by the data streams, confused by the formulae, charts and graphs and more readily accepting of technical strategies that promised savings or an improved bottom line.  For their part employees tended to be viewed as blocks on an organization chart, or simply cells within a spreadsheet.  They weren't actual people.

But these days most companies (not yet all, I'm afraid) expect more from their compensation practitioners. They expect to see a balance between technical abilities, familiarity with business operations, understanding of the employee perspective, communication skills and a capability to offer practical solutions that create a win-win atmosphere within the organization.

Increasingly the one dimensional technocrats are viewed as dinosaurs by a leadership that views their limited capabilities as too restrictive, too judgmental (the policy says, the survey says, figures don't lie, etc.) and overly reliant on espousing tactics that others employ.  They struggle when it comes to helping their own organization solve problems and overcome challenges that may not be common outside of their own environment.

So, where do you fall in the grand scheme of things?  In an increasingly complex work environment you need to wear more than one hat, more than a single competency.  You also need to have one foot in the present and the other in the future.  Don't live in the past.  The "good old days" are gone.

So have care.  Because if your colleagues, peers and even senior leadership ever start to think of you as a dinosaur they won't be thinking of a T-Rex, but a lumbering Brontosaurus.

 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 clowder of cats.

Creative Commons image, "T-Rex," by Scott Kinmartin

Comments

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

You gave a good description of some of the differences between tacticians and strategists, too, Chuck. Detailed knowledge of tactics (which vehicle is the fastest) avails little when the strategy (traversing a rocky pitted mountain road) should define the issue. "Best" is relative to the context.

[Jacque Vilet]

I agree Chuck. And just more instance of HR people not understanding the business. I just got through reading an article on whether HR is broken in HBR ---- the second one of its kind in 3 weeks. BUT if Comp Pros want to, they can take it upon themselves to get out of their office and talk to and learn from people in the business part of the company. That's the only way they're going to learn to be strategic ---- see the big picture. And afterward maybe they can train their colleagues in HR to do the same thing!

[John Nichols]

What goes around comes around. I was taught in the mid 70s by a forward thinker at Shell that compensation is an art and not a science and that to get things 80% right is pretty good going and it gets things done.