Why communicate now? Aren't things bound to change before year-end salary reviews? Aren't we bound to get it wrong if we start talking to employees now?
Compensation departments often run on the "no news is good news" communications strategy, choosing to take the upper hand in their relationship with employees. Fewer communications are certainly less work. Plus, we are rarely censured for keeping mum since we are in charge of the money (so to speak).
How long will it work for compensation departments to play it close to the vest in a world where information changes hands every nanosecond? It's barely working now.
One of the reasons is the power of today's real-time communications technology. Another is far more fundamental. Compensation departments just don't understand, or trust, the power of communications. Especially when the communications are about process rather than end results.
Communications can have far more value to the organization than publishing headlines or getting people to fill out forms. It's about supporting the team, which MUST be one of your priorities after our work experience recently has been scrambled in unforeseen ways.
Take a look at these top reasons for communicating to employees to see if you can find a new perspective that will lead to an upgrade in your department's communications. Each of the following communication goals can stand alone or work together in a compensation communications strategy. Start by analyzing your current situation, including listening to what employees and executives say they are missing.
Share information -- This is the time-honored goal for compensation communications. At the end of the fiscal year, the department has information about raises which they transfer to managers who send it down the line. There is a limited, and highly curated, amount of context provided to explain the information.
Grow knowledge -- How is knowledge different from information? Information sticks to facts. Knowledge is about understanding. It's the difference between reading headlines (for information) and reading the news article (for explanation and understanding).
Compensation information goals are met by a once-and-done announcement. It's a sort of high-level briefing. The goals to equip employees to achieve knowledge are more complex: explanation, rationale, discussion, clarification. Notice, a compensation communications strategy dedicated to knowledge takes the time to explain why and lets employees discuss the information with their advisors.
The goal of achieving knowledge would be a great upgrade for many compensation organizations. Most everyone is confused about something right now. Talking things through using reference materials will also help everyone calm down a bit (see below) and build back her/his relationship with the manager. Why? Because employees will see that their manager can be trusted to have insight she/he will share. Additionally, employees and managers will notice that the compensation department has a thoughtful plan, and will trust a company that makes an effort to explain what is happening and build buy-in.
Build cohesion -- Can you call your company a "united whole" right now? If not, this is the communications goal for you. You may or may not be able to collaborate with the C-suite on the goal, but you surely can collaborate with the rest of Human Resources. Work together with Benefits and Training to build a Total Rewards approach to communications this year. Agree on shared messaging and build a calendar of communications where you share communication channels. If you can collaborate with the C-suite, link the steps that your company is taking to get through this fiscal year with your reward philosophy.
Stimulate energy -- Do you know which communication efforts inspire employees? Odds are they have told you more than once in surveys, focus groups, town halls and so on. If you haven't listened recently, even the act of listening will nurture a higher level of energy in the organization, as long as it leads to noticeable change. If you want to work on communications in this area, remember that it involves the tricky business of influencing employee emotions. To avoid snags get a strategy together and then run it by a non-HR advisory group for refinement.
Achieve change -- Some organizations will use the disarray in their supply chains, operations and customer relations to pivot to new business and/or working models. Compensation communications should be integrated with organizational change efforts from the beginning to make it clear that reward, recognition and career growth are central to the new way of working.
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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