We really don't spend much time studying the emotions we feel as we practice compensation. But I think that looking more closely can only make our work more satisfying. In the long run, chasing these insights will make us more aware of our own career satisfaction, and incorporating them into our decision making may lead to a shift in what we prize and prioritize for our career.
Some people find compensation basics boring -- job analysis, job definition, job pricing using surveys and so on.
But I think many more find it quite fulfilling. Even though there is no "correct" answer, organizing information and using survey data is a process of analysis and synthesis that is bound to feel rewarding if you pay attention.
In addition to these gratifying mind games, there are other dimensions that happen to touch on emotions. Have you considered the role your work has played in the employees' career? Once you've done a good job on job pricing, the employee has a solid foundation for all sorts of things that are crucial to their professional satisfaction: job title, eligibility for incentives, benefits coverage, access to training and so on.
In a way, you were appointed the employee's mentor during the first days of their career with your company, and you used your experience to create a work environment for the employee. It's quite an achievement, and some of our colleagues derive a lot of pleasure from looking at our work this way.
And how about one more technicality that we should celebrate -- meeting the budget. No small achievement in that a working budget is evidence that your insights plus financial skills are solid. Who said working with numbers is dry?
What about fun? Where does that EVER come in? You may have noticed that this type of pleasure is rarely experienced alone. I'd suggest that there's a lot of fun to be experienced by adjusting the singular priority of "All numbers, all the time" to "Are we making this work?"
Compensation success isn't holed up in the HR office, it's live tested out there between managers and employees. When you act as a coach for a manager or supervisor, answering their questions and building their confidence, isn't that pleasing -- especially when you think about how far into the future your work will pay off? Plus, there's always the intellectual stimulation of engaging managers when it comes to tricky topics like promotions or performance levels.
For me, the best fun is working on career development projects. With them, I feel like I am looking forward to a promising future for all employees. I get to interact with managers and employees on a topic that is very important to them. And when it's all over, I know I've fulfilled the hopes of many ambitious contributors to the company's future, as well as alerted the less savvy to new opportunities.
Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career development and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides market pay information and designs base salary structures, incentive plans, career paths and their implementation plans. Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. A former Board member for the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA), Margaret coauthored the popular eBook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, a toolkit that all practitioners can find at https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.
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