I Have a Pet Peeve

I've worked in Compensation my entire career.   Spent most of it in Corporate America and now for a bunch of years as a global consultant.  I love what I do, but at the same time can acknowledge that it's not all fun and roses.  There are dark times.  Not every day ends with a smile.

You see, like most of you out there (ok, probably everybody) I have a pet peeve - a behavior or attitude that happens at work and irritates me, big time.  Well, to be honest, I have more than one peeve.  I have several.  I suppose that the longer you work in this field the more you find yourself shaking your head at those "muggles" that you have to deal with.

How about you?  Be honest.  As a compensation practitioner what bothers you most about those you're supposed to be helping?  What are you exposed to that just drives you nuts?

Go ahead, you can vent.  We're all friends here.  Likely we all have stories to tell.

For the sake of space I've kept my irritations to a small list.  How many times have you experienced one or more of these scenarios?

• How hard can it be?  Managers with the attitude that you can just grab any compensation survey, flip to the page that matches the job . . . and there you are.  Anyone can do it.

• We don't need a job description:  Likely because they didn't write one, and don't want to now.  "Use the title in your analysis," is a common refrain, or "doesn't everyone know what that job does?"

• Just give them more:  Some folks have a simple answer for every problem, except that there isn't a money tree planted behind the building.  But hey, don't sweat the details.

• How do I fill out this form?  From those who can't be bothered with performance appraisal forms.  They know the answer (score / rating) already, but just need help in back filling this %$#@!& form.  We're all paper pushers in HR.

• Can't you just convert the currency?  A basic no-no in international compensation, but I still hear it asked, over and over again.

• Give everyone 2%:  With small merit budgets it's too inconvenient to go through the motions of a performance review cycle.  Just push the EASY button and let's go to lunch.  Little thought is given as to how the high performers or even Joe Average will respond.  As if all the consequences are good.

• That's not what the market is paying:  Your data is wrong.  They'll tell you that they know a guy who makes more, or they Googled higher rates on the internet, or they'll just cop an attitude of "that just can't be.  Prove me wrong."

• I need more money:  Whatever is available isn't enough.  The reasons can be as myriad as snowflakes, and are not always business-related, but somehow the "system" just isn't responsive to their needs.  So you should fix it.

• You're not being flexible:  This is my personal favorite, where any answer but the one they want to hear is not the right one, which proves how rigid you are in your thinking.

No amount of training, self-help courses or even hand holding explanations seem to stem the tide of repeated aggravations from colleagues, clients and even strangers on the street who don't have a clue.  Though they say and act as if they do.

So what do you do with your pet peeves?  You grin and bear it, keep pushing that boulder up the hill and fix a polite smile on your face.  It's the price of being a compensation professional.

Thanks for listening.

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, "Fractalius Kitty Kitty," by peasap

Comments

[Jules]

Win-Lose negotiation. Gets me every time. I keep an open mind and am generally open to ideas and being flexible. But when your thoughts are along the line of, "HR needs to be flexible enough to just let business have it their way regardless of how abnormal it is what they want to do."

"Look, I am not paying your Executive Assistant a CEO salary. I understand, he used to be a CEO, however we pay for the position. No, this is not an exception which is reasonable to make."

[Sharon McKnight]

I've experienced all your pet peeves at one time or another, and then some. Working in HR can be difficult. Working in Comp, however, can go beyond difficult, smack into the realm of absurd.

[Chuck Csizmar]

That's a great comment, Sharon. Sad, but true. Maybe we're all a little bit crazy to put up the absurdity.

[Scott B]

"We HAVE to give the employee a raise, even though the new job is in the same or lower grade, because they won't accept the role unless we give them more money!"

[E. K. Torkornoo]

Hahaha! Chuck, these sound so familiar, and not just in North America.

The following are one or more of my pet peeves [especially but not exclusively from public sector and non-profit settings in the US, and from many organizations -- big and small -- in Middle East and Africa --, where rewards practice is often still Wild West stuff]:

- From The Boss (who has perennially resisted/danced around every proposal to support a small annual budget for a small portfolio of reliable third-party rewards surveys, studies, etc.):

"Hey, can't you just quickly call around to see what others are paying/doing [so that we can solve this emergency problem which seems to happen every other month or so]?

OR

"Just google/search the net to find us some data on what they are paying/doing for [job title]" [even though you keep telling me that such information is unstructured, unreliable, and comes at significant risk, unless we systematically review data from established third party sources]"

I can't count the number of times I have come across the following efforts at 'quick fix', even when a little peak below the surface reveals a better, sustainable solution:

"Give everyone X% raise across-the-board"

"Why not simply round up those 8.33%, 16.66% ... target bonus numbers for that group of employees?"

Or Worse

"Some emergency thing came up before your return, so I sent off the proposal to the CEO, but rounded up your 8.33%, 16.66% ...[and all those decimal points] into whole numbers as target bonus percentage of base pay. I think it makes it easier (sic) to communicate the decision to the employees."

Thanks again Chuck.

[Chuck Csizmar]

I love it! Just when you think you've seen it all, someone comes along who has experienced an even greater absurdity. I hope we get to see more examples here of managers behaving badly - though it is kind of sad too, isn't it? Where do these folks come from? What are they thinking?

[A. Esgain]

I couldn't stop laughing !

Another one I like : "we don't need a written policy / procedure, this does not fit in the company culture".

[Luigi]

"We must keep him. If he leaves, we close!!!" ...

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

"Above average performance is the average here."

"I only want what is fair."

Any pay comment involving "cost of living."

"OtherEnterprise does THIS!"

Nothing from an internal source that contradicts a senior executive's preference will be believed.

...but there are too many to list...

[Barbara Mather, Ph.D.]

Great list, Chuck! I love it - can relate to most of them. I am often asked where all the good comp people have gone, to which I respond, "GONE! I think most of them just cannot take it any longer!"