What's Your "Comp Guy" Personna?

I’ve never been particularly good at mathematics and yet have made for myself a successful career in Compensation.  Now, why is that?  One would think that all of us compensation folks are strictly numbers people, focused on statistics, surveys and regression formulae.  On the other hand, math experts often fail to rise to the top of my profession.  Counterintuitive?  Another quandary to ponder over.

Why is it that some compensation practitioners manage to succeed (climb the specialist ladder into management ranks) while others don’t?  There may be several reasons for this, but I think an individual's persona has a lot to do with it.

Changing View of Compensation

Effectiveness as a professional in Compensation isn’t (or shouldn’t be) all about the numbers, but equally as much about the people affected by those numbers.  A successful practitioner should be able to understand their organization's business as well as monitoring the pulse of employees; those who should be treated better than figures on a spreadsheet.   When you consider the human factor as little more than tiny boxes on an organization chart, then your ability to relate to and solve human factor problems will be limited by your ignorance of the employee relations impact that naturally follows your recommendations.  Effective compensation is more than simply adding up the numbers.

Do you remember seeing the HR analyst with the pocket protector and a bunch of pens in the shirt pocket?  That would be the one walking the hallway laden down with surveys and statistical analyses.  That vision personifies the traditional view of “the comp guy."  This was the master technician who lived with the charts, graphs and regression formulae, but who failed to understand the people impact of their work.

Today, those who lead the application of best reward practices are cut from a different cloth, at least in most companies.  Compensation practitioners are no longer confined to a cubicle or an out-of-the-way office, but increasingly are stepping out among the employees, developing an understanding of how the business operates, as well as honing their ability to effectively partner with internal business clients.

Sensitized practitioners know that the process of compensating employees should be about the opportunity for rewards, and about how those rewards can influence employee behavior, for good or ill.  Therefore, the success of the solutions provider lies in being able to creatively assist managers in achieving their objectives, while at the same time adhering to equitable and consistent policies and procedures.  It's not about quoting policy with a shrug of the shoulders.

What’s the Color of Your Hat?

Something else to think about; what role does the Compensation function play in your organization?  How is the Compensation practitioner viewed both by employees and by management?

• Policeman vs. Gatekeeper:  The proper application of responsibilities is not to simply say yes or no, but to encourage an open process of ideas and practices that operate within established policies and procedures.  Nobody likes the fellow who can offer little more in the way of help than quoting from the company policy manual.  That's not making a contribution.
• Numbers vs. People:  Are your thought processes employee-oriented, or is the understanding that real people are affected by these policies and procedures lost on you?  A business-only focus that ignores the human factor in driving success is inevitably tripped up by predictably lower morale and the employee disengagement that follow such insensitivity.
• Policy vs. Flexibility:  Are you the one who quotes policy as the supposed answer to every manager’s question, or are you instead open to creative and constructive possibilities? 

When you tell a manager that the decision remains with them, that you’re only offering advice, their reaction is often startling.  You'll be able to actually see their body relax.   When they no longer feel challenged, you'll be able to reach them with helpful suggestions, because their instinctive defensive wall will be down and their minds open to possibilities.

• Analysis Paralysis vs. Solutions-provider:  Being able to make timely decisions vs. being caught up with a constancy of analysis that never seems to move toward a decision point.  Some call that phenomenon "analysis-paralysis," while others pin the label "treadmill management."  Do you have a reputation as a decision-maker or as an analyzer?

When you consider the compensation practitioners that you deal with in your organization, are they the good guys or the bad guys - the white hats or the black? 

Which are you?

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, "Friends," by S. Baker

Comments

[Petr Vrabec]

To me, the main thing is to be able to work with the business leaders on the one hand and to have a broad understanding of company business, employee implications, HR generally, and - of course - of compensation and benefits, all in their mutual interconnection. Narrow focus on numbers is not enough.

[simin]

To me deep analysis is only a platform to provide business with the required information to make an informed decision. So the question is not between analysis or in charge of taking decision, or between bad or good. It is how more advanced analysis can help business in taking an informed decision. Otherwise any decision with proper data and analysis is only an opinion and not a decision.

[Chris Dobyns]

This must be a common affliction with compensation specialists, and the inability to master mathematics (although the guys I work with would offer a quick rebuke that we're not really talking about "mathematics", but really higher-order arithmetic).

That sort of feedback at work inevitably always makes me feel even less-smart.

Over the years, I have ascertained that I've not been successful due to my proficiency in math . . . oops, I mean higher-order arithmetic - but mostly due to my ability to "see" and understand the relationships between numbers, and then know what (if anything) to do about it. There, that makes me sound at least a little bit smarter.

I guess I've never contemplated the color of my hat (or even if I was wearing one, for that matter). I suppose what I've reminded myself of periodically, is that I work for management and the company - and that all our compensation interventions are a means to an ends. And while I've tried (more so in recent years . . .) to consider both employee/behavioral and the financial implications of pay interventions - I've always tried to frame my recommendations to be selfless, without any contemplation of how they might impact me, personally.

That's probably been the toughest personna to sustain.

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

Makes me laugh now, after finding every form of academic math (except the Math of Logic) so painfully difficult that I took every math course possible, barely wallowing through. Initially pursued the HR "soft skills" path of employment advertising, recruiting, interviewing, investigating, writing, persuading, ER, etc. Later found myself also mastering employee testing, LR, safety, benefits, T&D, OD, then (gasp) salary admin and advanced job evaluation, surveying, etc., to the point of becoming a Board Certified Forensic Examiner for Federal Court Expert Witness reports/testimonies on ... wait for it ... statistical analyses of executive compensation.

When the reality behind the numbers became apparent, the figures all made sense. My prior well-developed communications skills permitted clear articulations of "compensation" issues that were not simply numeric but based on human behaviors reflected in or displayed by mathematical models. Besides, "all rewards don't jingle."

Does no good to master arithmetic or math if you can't explain their meaning in everyday terms. Basic arithmetic will suffice. Advanced knowledge of human behavioral dynamics and the ability to 'splain it all is far more VITAL than mere number-counting ability.