Compensation Cafe

He Sells, She Sells... But Why and How?

On the heels of the interesting comment conversation that followed by my recent Classic post on gender differences in response to rewards, where I was quick to footnote that the research and its conclusion as not applicable to sales compensation, I stumbled into this study.  Naturally, I had to share it with you here.  I don't mean to continue diving too deeply down the rabbit hold on gender differences - but I did think this an interesting bookend to that conversation.

The original intent of the study, The Similarities and Differences Between Men and Women in Sales by Steve W. Martin, a sales linguistics expert who gathered data via an extensive survey from over 1,000 sales professionals, was to understand the specific traits, actions and habits associated with sales performance.  It was not designed to compare male and female sales pros.  Rather, the gender differences jumped out as the data was analyzed, prompting the development of this research report.

Here are a few interesting findings (there are many others as well, if you're willing to dig into the 50 page report).

Why I'm in Sales

While the motivations that lead to a career in sales probably vary as widely as the people themselves, the author notes that the answers to a question about the fundamental reason they are in sales generally fall into four categories.  Below we see where the responses women and men gave differ.  Men are more likely than women to select "the harder I work the more money I make" and women more likely than men to state that the career choice "just happened."  This may jive somewhat with the findings highlighted in my earlier post, that men are more likely to pursue a role with pay based on competition (hopefully, in the case of sales, it's inter-company rather than intra-company).

How Important Money Is To Me

Whether pay explicitly led them to a career in sales or not, the chart below shows - surprise surprise, right? - that the majority of male and female sales pros are motivated by money.  62% of men and 54% of women agreed with the statement “Money is extremely important to me and how I measure my personal success."  Only 14% of men and 15% of women disagreed.  So while there is a small observable difference in "money importance" between the genders, it is less significant than their motivation to get into sales (above) might suggest.

  

The Difference a Mentor Makes

This is the one I really found interesting - the difference that having had a mentor makes to actual sales performance, as measured by previous year's performance against quota.  Women who've had the benefit of mentorship significantly outperformed their no-mentor female peers - a finding that was not nearly as striking for men.

Some thought provoking takeaways for sales recruiting, retention, development, performance management and role definition here - less so (to my thinking) for sales rewards. But still.

What say you?

Ann Bares is the Editor of Compensation Café,  Author of Compensation Forceand 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 and enjoys reading in her spare time. Follow her on Twitter at @annbares.

Creative Commons image "handshake" by iconoclast020

The Red Envelope

As a Compensation practitioner, have you ever seen the use of the "Red Envelope?"  In Chinese and other East and Southeast Asian societies a red envelope or packet is a monetary gift given during the holidays or special occasions such as weddings, graduation or the birth of a child.

Multiple cultural distinctions exist between various countries, from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand to South Korea, Japan and the Philippines and other countries.  A monetary gift to children by their relatives, or from married couples to those about to be married, or simply best wishes from elders to the younger generation.  The uses seem endless from one country to another.

Various cultural traditions dictate that the amount of money should end with an even digit, while odd numbered amounts have other purposes.  Other traditions require that the money should not be given in fours, or the number four should not appear in the amount.  Apparently the pronunciation of the number four is the same as for the word death.

Connection to Compensation

That's nice, you're probably saying, and an interesting tidbit for the next time a conversation lags, but as this practice of handing out cash envelopes is used outside of the company, how does it relate to an organization's reward program?

Think Spot Award Program.  Think Recognition.  Think outside the box to consider how you might be able to influence your own reward & recognition programs to tap into the unexpected - to achieve appreciation by employees for a gesture of recognition or simple goodwill, not simply for doling out more cash under a standard pay-for-performance scheme.

Think about the possibilities of your own Red Envelope program, or call it Green or Yellow or even Purple.

But first, consider the scenario of two people having a coffee at a local Starbucks.  One of those people works for you.  Now somewhere in the conversation, the topic turns to where these two people work, and comparisons are quickly made.  Those comparisons won't be about how much money each of them make (unless they're really close), but about their work environment.  What it's like to work at their respective employers.  What each of them feel about their employer.

All the money in the world won't make your employee say good things about your organization if the boss is a tyrant, if employees are not treated fairly, if the company doesn't seem to care about its workers, and if the employee would prefer to work elsewhere.  Reputations are made and lost in these conversations, as word of how organizations treat employees will spread.

I once worked for a short period at an employer where the Staffing Manager privately confided to me that "The word is out.  Quality talent are being advised by local search firms to avoid us."

Worst case scenario?  Perhaps.  But it happened.  It can happen where you work too.

Make A Connection

Think about it.  What can you do to improve morale, engagement, the working atmosphere, even the reputation of your organization among employees?

What if your organization instituted an employer-sponsored program of ad hoc cash grants to employees, and/or their families, not for performance but in recognition of something significant that happened in your employee's life?  That's like treating them like extended family themselves, isn't it?

Your own Red Envelope program.

It doesn't have to cost a lot of money.  You won't need a big budget.  Because the largest impact of such a feel-good grant is the positive message it sends that you (the organization) cares.

Now think again about that Starbucks conversation. Think about your employer saying to their companion, "Let me tell you something that my company does, just out of the blue." Indeed, this can be where good reputations are born and spread.

Positive stuff.  And yes, such a payment would be a reward, in the broader sense of Total Rewards.

Something to consider when you're looking outside the box.

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,"Red Envelope," by Christian Bjarnson

Facebook: We're Keeping Performance Evaluations

According to recent counts, at least 30 of the Fortune 500 have ditched performance ratings.  At least company, however, after careful analysis and consideration, has decided to hang on to the practice.  In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Facebook head of People Lori Goler and head of HR Business Partners Janelle Gale, along with Wharton professor and consultant Adam Grant (author of Give and Take), explain why.

Here are some key points from their article.

Transparency and Fairness. The Facebook team asserts, as I have, that in reality performance ratings exist even when companies get rid of the formal process.  They are just done subjectively behind the scenes rather than in an open - and admittedly challenging - manner.  "Without evaluations, people are left in the dark about who is gauging their performance and how."

The Macro as Well as the Micro.  Real-time feedback systems are an excellent way to help employees see and learn from their day-to-day successes and failures, but they don't help them (or the organization) gauge their performance overall.  These micro assessments come without a macro assessment can leave employees at a loss to appreciate their performance in a larger context.  "At Facebook we have experimented with various approaches to translating micro assessments into a macro performance rating."

Untethered Development Conversations.  While employee development is often cited as a reason to move away from performance evaluations, the authors note that feedback and conversations about professional growth, untethered by ratings, can backfire.  "Without ratings, they can spend weeks pruning a few trees while the forest is on fire.  If a manager receives multiple pieces of feedback about being late to meetings but misses the larger issue of prioritization, she might become the timeliest person to deliver mediocre results."

Success Without Ratings Requires Significant Investment.  The authors note research, including a global survey by CEB, finding that despite the issues with performance evaluations, not having them can be worse.  The CEB survey results show that a Manager Conversation Quality score (which includes a range of criteria including performance on specific assignments, contributions to organization success, work priorities, developmental action steps, etc.) decreases 14% in organizations without performance ratings compared to organizations with them.  "Although a handful of managers are more effective without ratings, most organizations will find it too difficult to get their managers to the level needed to make this change worth the investment.

In conclusion, the authors make it clear they aren't claiming that performance evaluations are uniformly beneficial, simply that they involve trade-offs and - in light of these trade-offs - they have decided to keep theirs.

Thoughts? Reactions?

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 and enjoys reading in her spare time. Follow her on Twitter at @annbares.

Creative Commons image "feedback checklist" by AJC1

Outing Outsourcing and the Gig Economy

Why get excited about CEO pay piggery when outsourcing and giggery is much more likely to cost you your job? The accelerating trend towards reducing payrolls by replacing employees with outside contractors threatens our livelihoods.    

Compensation people and the objects of our efforts might not survive outsourcing where work is delegated to other outfits or the gig economy in which consultants are given short focused assignments. Even handling employee remuneration and administering pay programs can be outsourced. Total reward professionals need not be involved when independent contractors are controlled by purchasing agents and cost accountants rather than human resource people. Meanwhile, employees from virtually every occupational category stand to lose what little security still comes from a regular job with an organization if they are displaced and then must seek day to day survival by continually negotiating temporary project deals as independent outside suppliers.

Don't be surprised when enterprises are quick to shed employees. Avoiding employment relationships by shipping out work to contractors certainly simplifies business. It reduces management to contract planning. Monitoring the results produced by outside vendors for whom you have absolutely no responsibility means no more "people problems", because you no longer have subordinate employees. Instead, you receive the contracted services of other entities operating at an arm's length distance and required to deliver specified results. No performance evaluations, stressful personal dealings or contentious emotional expectations.

Employee pay is replaced by a clear cost expense item without any burden rate, no taxes to deduct and no imprecision for overtime, commissions, bonus, or variable cash awards. No complicated benefit selections, no individualized payroll deductions. No long-term employment relationship commitment at all. Rather than stockpile people with wide varieties of knowledge, skills and abilities, instead buy totally fungible specialized talent as needed by immediate circumstances from easily replaceable output modules. Like today's electronic equipment -- don't fix it ... just replace the entire unit. Similarly, it is easier to drop a supplier than to fire any regular employee, no matter how problematic their performance may be.

A regressive devolution back to the exploitative practices of dark past years looms. Despite brave attempts by some organizations to introduce more enlightened environments over the last century, too many enterprises consciously accept the old sweat-shop indifference to the humanity of their workers. Instead of valuing and cultivating worker talents, they concentrate on finding the lowest cost highest quality output bidders for their product or service. They don't care who does it as long as it is produced within the proper tolerances of quality, quantity, time and cost for the highest profit possible. That is the typical mandate delivered to top executives of every organization by their owners. It is not a phenomenon restricted to commercial private businesses, either, because the same dynamics operate in the public sector. Taxpayers insist on optimum services at minimum personal cost. Even union pension funds seek high returns on their investments. None of those expectations depend on employee welfare at the enterprises that serve the customers. Whether all these demands create a workplace of robot automatons or one of collaborative independent agents, neither environment requires much HR management.

I'm struggling to articulate an uneasy gut feeling about the potential implications of negative attitudes towards the employment role of organizations. Purchasing production units is easier than hiring and managing troublesome people. Lean vendors can be deployed to supply the same output results as team members, but at the cost of accepting a different relationship ... like, hardly any, beyond that of buyer and seller. The purchase of a product can easily be callously disengaged from the lives, souls and welfare of the producers. But is this the desired future of work?

Unsure if the slide towards this scary dispassionate dystopia can be stopped. Perhaps more of us should speak out. Maybe "outing outsourcers" can become a new rite of public employer shaming that will discourage this ominous trend.

Perhaps that fat cat overpaid CEO truly deserves an imperial reward package if he or she supplies good steady jobs with living wages to regular people.

E. James (Jim) Brennan is an independent compensation advisor with extensive total rewards experience in most industries.  After corporate HR posts and consulting CEO roles, he was Senior Associate of pay surveyor ERI before returning to consulting in 2015. A prolific writer (author of the Performance Management Workbook), speaker and frequent expert witness in reasonable executive compensation court cases, Jim also serves on the Advisory Board of the Compensation and Benefits Review. 

"Cheap Labor to Go" image by PT courtesy of Creative Commons (magnify by clicking on it)

"Outsourcing" illustration by Frits Ahlefeldt, courtesy of Creative Commons

The Consultant Dilemma: Make Your Own or Go with Store-bought?

Much of what we do in compensation is logical and systematic. Once you know the steps for a process or a report, why would you spend money on a consultant? Just get the work done and move on. After all, isn't this stuff in your job description?

Odds are, it is. Whether we're talking job pricings, salary structures, gender/minority analysis or you name it, it's all in our job description somewhere. And yet, in my experience, hiring a consultant doesn't mean you're shirking your job. In fact, if you do it well, working with a consultant often demonstrates your ability to lead by making an investment that will provide returns for many years without having to reopen your wallet.

Here's the case for investing in consulting assistance that I made to a colleague recently:

Become as sophisticated as the consultant's best clients. You may have worked for two or three companies. Your consultant will have worked for dozens. Each one had a problem to solve that you do, too. Work on a new or vexing project on your own, and you might as well be unfolding a paper map and uncapping a highlighter. Invest in a consultant and you get a GPS that shows you the two or three best routes, and enables you to avoid dead ends and accidents.

Meet hard deadlines. Most of our work is very time consuming. Especially if you are a small shop, odds are you will get interrupted by a zillion other things and probably should. Consultants not only have more experience than you do in creating realistic project plans, they also contract with you to meet specific deadlines.

Learn a lot. Consider this. Even if you know how to cook, the Barefoot Contessa offers tested techniques and recipes that you may never discover on your own. In compensation, the best consultants consider themselves teachers, showing you how everything is done and prepping you to do it yourself, so you can build on the results of your current project without further help from them.

Make your attorney happier. Can you even imagine that? Here are a couple of reasons. When employee legal challenges occur and work becomes discoverable by a court, consultants' work tends to be far more documented than in-house work. When it comes to questions of equity, guidance by a third party (who has no skin in the game) often has more street cred than your company's self-assessment. From an experience standpoint, consultants have typically worked with attorneys on these issues in the past, so they know how to address formal requirements. In addition, some consultants provide expert testimony. Having been on the "hot seat," they can help you avoid practices or documentation that can be easily challenged.

Unsubscribe when you're ready. Most consulting work is once and done. You decide if you want to invite them back.

Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career paths and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides services that include market pay information, base salary structures, incentive plan design, career paths and new plan implementation. Margaret is a Board member of the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA). Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. Margaret coauthored the popular ebook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, which can be found @ https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.

Creating a Positive Employee Experience

The employee experience is quickly becoming a major area of emphasis for many HR practitioners and business leaders. It is a transformation away from holdover policies and practices, like the annual performance review and command-and-control management, that began in the Industrial Era.

In the modern organization, the employee experience creates a workplace that is more human centered and technology-driven. According to Jeanne Meister in a recent Forbes article, the result is an experience that is “personalized, compelling, and memorable.”

Research is beginning to provide valuable insights into how organizations can measure the employee experience, as well as the key workplace practices which can cultivate that experience.

A compelling employee experience, according to the research above, is based on five key elements: a strong sense of belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness, and vigor (energy). These elements reflect the high expectations that many workers now bring to the workplace and their work relationships.

Within the employee experience, the relationship between individual and organization has also changed. Rather than what the organization can get from the individual in human capital, the experience is more about what individuals choose to give of themselves when their experience is positive and compelling.

The challenge for many organizations is creating that experience in an authentic and personalized way. This often requires a change in mindset, not just terminology.

For example, there are several key practices that help to make work more human and contribute to a positive employee experience. They include things like meaningful work, empowerment, and feedback/recognition. These practices reflect deeply personal approaches and preferences, rather than attributes that are homogenous across the workforce.

Indeed, recent research is finding that poorly implemented strategies (i.e., compelling employees to feel meaningfulness) can often backfire and lead to higher rates of burnout. The solution is often to allow meaningfulness to emerge through conversations between manager and reports. Additional support comes from research finding positive gains in productivity associated with job crafting, or allowing employees to find their own sense of meaning and empowerment at work, particularly when they feel like they don’t fit in with the organization.

As more attention is devoted to the employee experience and how organizations can successfully cultivate it among their employees, it will be important to ensure that practices are thoughtfully crafted to allow for both individuality and greater humanity. This will help organizations to avoid the pitfalls of Human Era practices applied with an Industrial Era mindset.

What practices would you like to see your company make to improve your own employee experience?

As Globoforce’s Vice President of Client Strategy and 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. He is the co-author of "The Power of Thanks" and 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.

Startup Equity: Three Crucial Variables (Part 9 of an n part series)

Startup equity has approximately a gazillion moving parts. But three of these variables are far more important than all of the others. These three components are what make your plan uniquely yours. They are the things that require real thought. They are also the elements that are most commonly viewed as “plug-and-play” in the world of startups.

1. Vesting Schedule

Stock options are grants with four-year vesting schedules. Everyone knows this. RSUs have a three-year schedule. Everyone knows this as well. However, while these are the most common vesting schedules, they are not as “standard” or as scientific as you may think.

The truth about vesting is a bit more complex. Vesting should align with expected employment cycles and potential company objectives (time and performance.) If four years fit this bill, then great! If not, you should consider something(s) different. Two years may be right or maybe seven years makes sense. You may even need more than one vesting schedule depending on the level of participant and the goals for that job. Your vesting schedule is a key competitive differentiator. Doing the same thing as everyone else puts you at a disadvantage unless you are the absolute best in your industry.

2. Termination Rules

If you die, you get one year to exercise. If you leave while still in good standing, you get 30 days or three months. Unvested options and RSUs expire immediately. Again, this is common knowledge but it is not based on facts.

A small number of companies have started granting equity that does not expire. While this is a generous offer, the likelihood that it will result in running out of grantable shares is far too high for most companies. But, you may want to look at longer periods for key positions, or termination rules that align with the tenure of an individual. If someone has been with you for eight years, they may deserve more leeway than a new hire. There is no easy answer that works, only easy answers that don’t.

3. Change-in-Control and Related Liquidity

Things are less standard in this area. Should vesting accelerate? What should expire? What the heck qualifies as a “change-in-control?” Accelerating vesting sounds great, but it may limit a company’s ability to show value. If critical positions have no “stickiness” then acquirers may offer less in return for the risk of losing key players. Acceleration of RSUs may result in income and taxes at times when participants cannot afford it. On the other hand, acceleration may be a great negotiation tool for participants in key positions.

All of this may lead you to “inspire” people to stick around after the transaction via continued vesting or earn-out periods. This can be effective, but may backfire if the time to transaction has already been extensive. One solution may be to build in performance criteria that trigger acceleration only if the value of the company exceeds a certain level. Properly designed and communicated, this can provide targeted motivation that drives those most responsible for achieving this value.

The emerging fourth member of the big three is performance conditions. Ten years ago these were seldom seen at startups. Now they are still uncommon, but commonly requested. We will cover this topic in an up coming post.

Take a look at your plan and agreements. How “vanilla” are your vesting, termination and change-in-control provisions? More importantly, why? Don’t sell your company short on such a big component of your pay and motivation package. Minor differences in these three areas can have a major impact on your ability to hire, motivate and keep your best talent.

Dan Walter, CECP, CEP is the President and CEO of Performensation. He is passionately committed to aligning pay with company strategy and culture and has been deeply involved in equity compensation for a long, long time. Dan has written several industry resources including the recent Performance-Based Equity Compensation. He has co-authored ”Everything You Do In Compensation is Communication”, “The Decision Makers Guide to Equity Compensation”, “Equity Alternatives” and other books. Connect with Dan on LinkedIn. Or, follow him on Twitter at @Performensation and @SayOnPay.

Cafe Classic: Are Competitive Incentives a Turn Off for Women, a Turn On for Men?

Editor's Note:  As a woman, a mother of two (young adults: one male, one female) and a science book nerd, I found Louann Brizendine's book The Female Brain fascinating for its deep dive into the neurological and even endocrinological differences in our brains.  And so my antennae perk up whenever I see claims about gender differences in response to rewards, like the article and research highlighted in today's Cafe Classic.  Thought it would be interesting to revisit it.

Here's a piece of information that caught my attention yesterday, via Harvard Business Review's The Daily Stat:

Men were 94% more likely than women to apply for a job if its salary potential was described as being highly dependent on competition with other employees.

THAT is interesting. Men are nearly twice as likely to pursue a role with pay based on competition?  While the fact of this difference didn't really surprise me, the size of it did.

Neuroscientists have told us that women, on a neurological level, are wired to ease interpersonal conflict while men are geared to enjoy and even get a positive boost from it.  Does this mean, then, that men naturally gravitate toward - and women away from - competitive incentives?

A deeper look at the research (authored by University of Chicago economics professor John List and others) Do Competitive Workplaces Deter Female Workers? suggests that the reality is, in fact, more nuanced than that.  And while it is impossible to do justice to a 48 page research paper in a short blog post, here are a few of the notable results highlighted by the researchers (and paraphrased by me).

-Competitive workplaces (defined as those with a "individual tournament-based" pay approach which features a significant proportion of variable pay based on competition with other workers) significantly increase the gender gap in application, with women's likelihood of applying for the position dropping substantially relative to that of men.  Note that this is where we see that 94% number crop up.

-The gap is not driven by men opting to compete and women opting not to compete, but rather a significantly stronger aversion to competitive workplaces among women than among men.  In other words, the presence of the competive incentive approach discourages both men and women from applying - its just that the effect is much stronger for women.

-Several factors related to the workplace affect the gender gap including the degree to which compensation is linked to relative performance and whether the arrangement is team-based.  So, the more strongly leveraged the pay package (the greater the proportion of the competition-based incentive relative to fixed salary), the more aversion women show to it ... but introducing the element of a team makes it more attractive (or at least less unattractive) to them.

Bottom line, it would appear that both men and women prefer non-competitive pay "regimes" - but evidence suggests that competitive incentives are a much stronger "turn off" for women.

What can HR and compensation pros take away from this?  Here are a couple of thoughts, and I'd love to hear yours.  I think the findings of this research should encourage us to use care and caution in developing reward packages - outside of sales* - that are overwhelmingly leveraged on individual performance, particularly where individual performance is measured in a way that encourages competition among co-workers.  And where a competitive element is demanded by the role or surrounding busines conditions, we should remember that introducing a balancing element of team rewards might be a key to employee acceptance.

*Because this research was conducted with non-sales jobs and applicants, I don't think we can draw any conclusions about sales compensation from it.  Anyway, as we all know, sales people are different...

Ann Bares is the Editor of Compensation Café,  Author of Compensation Forceand 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 and enjoys reading in her spare time. Follow her on Twitter at @annbares.

Image courtesy of: old.penn-olson.com

You (Don't) Have The Right To Disconnect

How many emails do you send and receive on a daily basis?

If you're like the typical employee, you send and receive about 115 business emails per day. Sending and receiving all this email is time consuming; McKinsey Global Institute found that an average employee spends about 13 hours per week reading and responding to email.

And if you're similar to the typical employee, you're reading and responding to these emails around the clock. According to a survey conducted by Adobe Systems, 87% of respondents admitted that they looked at business emails outside of working hours. The typical respondent spent 3.2 hours per day on work email. Christine Naragon, of Adobe Systems, said "Americans are so concerned about keeping in touch they monitor emails around the clock, in socially unacceptable settings and during potentially dangerous times." According to Good Technology, 38% of employees routinely check work email at the dinner table, 50% of employees routinely check email while still in bed, and 69% of employees won't go to bed without first checking their email.

We know that work interruptions can be a productivity drain, but did you know that it takes employees around 16 minutes to refocus on their tasks after handling email. On average, employees check their email 36 times per hour, or 288 times per day (assuming an 8 hour work day). It's no wonder that we're working longer hours - most of our time at work isn't spent working!

The consequences of email overload aren't limited to just lost productivity; it also has consequences for our health and well-being. A team of researchers at UC Irvine and the U.S. Army studied the effects of email access on heart rate and ability to focus. Using heart monitors to track participants, the researchers found that limiting email access dramatically reduces stress levels. A 2015 research report from the U.K.'s Future Work Centre found that those who monitor email in off-hours experience higher stress and less work-life satisfaction. "Higher email pressure was associated with more examples of work negatively impacting home life and home life negatively impacting performance at work."

So, what can we do about this? France has adopted a unique strategy. Effective January 1, 2017, French workers won the "right to disconnect" from email, smartphones and other electronic leashes once their working day has ended. The new rule requires companies with 50 or more employees to set out-of-office hours when employees cannot send, reply to, digital communications. In a statement, the Ministry of Labor said "[t]hese measures are designed to ensure respect for rest periods and ... balance between work and family and personal life." The new rule is designed to address "the burden of work and the informational overburden, the blurring of the borders between private life and professional life", all of which are risks associated with the usage of digital technology.

This problem is not confined to France. As Lauren Collins at The New Yorker writes, “A recent study of American workers found that sixty-seven per cent had experienced ‘phantom rings’ – they were worried that someone was trying to get in touch with them, even when they were theoretically free. The right to disconnect, then, isn’t a French problem, but rather a French response to one with which we are all grappling.”

Would "The Right To Disconnect" work for us here in the United States? I don't think so. While there have been some "experiments" with this (for example, in 2008 Intel experimented with "No Email Fridays" and Tuesday morning “quiet times”, in which 300 engineers and managers set their email and IM clients to offline), too many organizations have created a work culture in which employees are expected to respond to emails right away, regardless of time of day or day of the week. There is an expectation of rapid response, and we may not even be aware that this high expectation has been set. Most of us don't explicitly evaluate employees' email response time on routine performance evaluations (although we may be doing it implicitly...). Undoing this expectation of rapid response requires a cultural shift of monumental proportions - in my opinion, not something that can be done via regulation or legislation. But if we're truly concerned about the health and well-being of our employees, it's something we should be thinking about. 

Stephanie Thomas, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Cornell University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on economic theory and labor economics in the College of Arts and Sciences and in Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Throughout her career, Stephanie has completed research on a variety of topics including wage determination, pay gaps and inequality, and performance-based compensation systems. She frequently provides expert commentary in media outlets such as The New York Times, CBC, and NPR, and has published papers in a variety of journals.

 

A Horse Of A Different Color

Within Human Resources it often seems that those in charge possess a strong compulsion to follow the lead of some other organization, what with the chase after so-called "best practices," an all-consuming need to know what the "survey says," and an inherent fear of doing something different from perceived universal norms.  They don't like to stick their head out.

This reliance on others taking the first step is part of a herd mentality, the belief that somehow the organization is safer - on the right track - by doing what everyone else is doing.  If only we can figure that out.

Of course, as a defense mechanism, it is harder to criticize someone for following the crowd.  For doing the accepted thing.  Because if you think that everyone else is doing it, it must be the correct thing to do.  Whatever the "it" is.

Follow the Crowd

However, that tagging along approach doesn't appear to be the operating procedure for Marketing, Sales, Manufacturing, IT and other functions within the organization.  Those specialty areas seem to be forever striving for that which sets them apart from their competitors.  Proponents of new techniques, new processes, new thinking are both encouraged and rewarded.  Following the crowd is actively frowned upon and could even be a career killer for someone advocating "Let's do what everyone else is doing."

How many times have you heard of organizations who support risk takers?  Who celebrate those who take a chance for the right reasons.  Aren't they touted as organization models to be emulated?

So what is it about HR that seems to set that function moving in the opposite direction?  Because all too often HR comes across as wanting only to mimic their competitors and general workforce, seeming to be comfortable in the "average" niche.  That thinking is a head scratcher for me.

People who are risk-adverse feel comforted by the support of "survey says."  They don't want to stick their head out but would prefer to bring a gang of like-minded organizations along with them (survey averages) to the proposal meeting.

For them, the perceived common practice can be used as a crutch to support recommendations.  "If you don't believe me, just look at what everyone else is doing."

About this, though.  When you support the use of "best practices," will you then be following what the high achievers are doing, or the more populous Joe Averages out there?

A New Mantra

I always advise my clients to do what is best for their organization, not for the other guy.  Sounds obvious, doesn't it?  What your organization needs to do in any particular subject area may not be what everyone else is currently doing.  What you are experiencing can be unique circumstances, given your organization's demographics, HR metrics, culture, industry, revenue or operating budget size, management biases, the strength of leadership, past experiences, financial soundness, etc.  So the "answer" you get from surveys and so-called "best practices" may not be reflective of what would work in your particular circumstances - at this particular point in time.

For example, if you find your average compa-ratio to be skirting 80%, and your market pricing study indicates base salaries are an average -10% to market, blindly advocating what everyone else is doing for midpoint adjustments and merit spend percentages may not be an appropriate strategy for you.

I will grant you though, that a takes a bit of intestinal fortitude to throw away the crutch and advocate a position singular to the needs of your organization.  Whether it is program design, expense recommendations, policy or procedural changes, or even administrative processes, sticking your neck out and standing alone in recommending improvements to your organization can be a thrilling as well as nerve-wracking experience.  And a risky one.

"What works for us" should be your mantra, not "What works for everyone else."

 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,"White Stone Among Black," by Cyron