If you’re a compensation practitioner today or hope to be one soon, do you have a three or five-year career plan? Do you have a sense of what you want to be doing down the road? Chances are that the typical response would fall into the “I want to be the boss” category. Kind of a knee-jerk answer, I know, but ambition can be a good thing.
The trick is, of course, that dreams without an action plan are usually called “fantasies.” So, what steps are you taking to convert your dream into a new reality?
The Analysis Trap
Most of us start out in Compensation by conducting analysis – or playing with the numbers, as our HR Generalist colleagues would say. We live with spreadsheets, fine-tuning our Excel skills. We are tasked with handling all the survey questionnaires, matching jobs and filling out multiple questionnaires. We become immersed in the data, learning how to live and work with numbers. As we progress, we become the answer-man for the myriad questions posed by client management; How many? How long? What is the cost or savings? What is the total? What is the value of my job(s)?
Some practitioners will find the anonymity and objectivity of dealing with numbers (they are what they are) to be appealing. Limited decision-making, less contentiousness in dealing with clients, and a comfort level being somewhat distant from the decision-making as they master the techniques of data manipulation. So, these employees decide to step off the career ladder and concentrate on the comfortable invisibility and self-satisfaction of being a “master compensation technician.”
And that’s not bad, for some. We require technical experts to get us the data we need. But that career path may not be for you. You may want more.
Passing Through the Beaded Curtain
That’s not so easily done, though. At least for some. Because to progress beyond the technical aspects of Compensation requires the practitioner to step toward the turmoil of decision-making and sticking your neck out, and away from the anonymity of “pushing numbers.”
New skill sets will be required; strategic thinking, persuasiveness and influencing skills will predominate, as the need for personal technical skills fades into the background. Suddenly you have a staff to perform those number-crunching tasks. You’re no longer needed to do what you love to do.
For some this change is energizing, freeing themselves to expand professionally, to learn and experience new adventures - to stick their head above the crowd and become a “player.” This is the move from professional analyst to management.
For others though, this personal journey through the curtain from hard to soft skills is going to be difficult. They may be reluctant to give up working on spreadsheets and taking deep dives into the data. They may hesitate to delegate technical tasks (“I can do it better and faster”), thus adding to the work on their plate, not developing staff and most important, not focusing on their new responsibilities.
What’s It Going to Be?
Let’s face it, everyone would like the title and extra money that goes with becoming part of Compensation Management. But the other side of that bright and shiny coin is that new and different responsibilities will be placed on your shoulders, and you will have to give up certain technical duties that you may have enjoyed.
That won’t happen overnight. However, soon after taking on the mantle of Leadership you will need to start the process of walking away from your previous technical tasks. The new skills will have to be learned and used. But for some this may become too much of a change, too much of a departure from the familiar, the comfortable, the safe. They like the technical side and want to stay there. But if these employees are left as managers they will eventually fail, their ineffectiveness becoming too much of a burden for the organization.
Others, of course, will relish passing the baton of spreadsheets and data manipulation to subordinates.
For those who struggle with this dilemma, I’d suggest keeping a copy of the job description in your desk, to be referred to from time to time. Chances are it talks more about using data rather than collecting it. Chances are your new role is dealing directly with management when they ask the question, “What do we do now?” or “What do we do with this information?”
Chances are that being a whiz at spreadsheets will be much less valued going forward. So you had best be prepared.
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, "Group of men," by mayreejayne
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