Many of our colleagues would say that compensation has nothing to do with feelings. The whole business has to do with facts and only facts. That's why there are certifications for practitioners in our business. There's a right and a wrong way to do our work, and a big part of it has to do with knowing the difference between good and bad data.
On the other hand, feelings have a lot to do with compensation COMMUNICATIONS. That's why I want to talk about them today. Addressing feelings through compensation communications is tricky business. If we ignore the connection, though, we can create serious misunderstandings among employees. And if we understand the connection, we are more likely to have interested listeners for our communications who will do what we've asked them to do.
Just as with compensation design, there's a right and a wrong way to deal with employee communications. An early planning step involves defining what you want your audience to "KNOW, DO AND FEEL" as a result of the communications. Then once you get your communications drafted, you test them against these goals. The words will need editing and the methods you are using will need adjustment if they don't: 1) transfer the knowledge you have prioritized, 2) prepare managers and employees to act on the knowledge, AND 3) inspire feelings that build engagement.
Let's look at an example. Responsiveness is always a favored trait because it is the foundation of effective teamwork and communication. It is especially important now, when everyone is working remotely and on multiple teams.
Say the Compensation Department thinks it's a good idea to highlight, mid-year, the traits and competencies that have emerged as priorities in our new work environment. Responsiveness is one of a group of competencies that will be communicated as reminders through a campaign that includes email, manager discussions and videos on the intranet. If you put all that work in to developing communication materials that mean well, but don't take into account that employees are feeling burnt out right now, there will be little or no interest in your campaign. Plus, employees might feel annoyed that you are ignoring their current burden.
On the other hand, what if the campaign talks about the downside of unresponsiveness and illustrates (perhaps humorously) what happens when a colleague is unresponsive? You'd be acknowledging everyone's typical experience, and they would be far more likely (engaged) to be open to acting differently (as you also illustrate in your campaign.)
Take another example -- you need to communicate the bad news that mid-year bonuses will not be paid because of business conditions. Everybody's been working full tilt. They may understand why there is no funding for bonuses, but they will still be disappointed. There will also be feelings that some money could have been found somewhere given how hard everyone is working. Communicating in that context, you can't change employees' minds, but you could influence them. Your "FEEL" goal in your "KNOW, DO AND FEEL" planning could be to design the communications to build a belief that the lack of bonus is suitable to the business situation. Explanations of product results or share behavior could be used as part of your explanation. Giving employees a context for your no-bonus decision makes it more likely that you will influence employee feelings.
Some may still disagree that feelings have anything to do with compensation communications. There are some situations where that is certainly true. I once worked with a major software company that limited its compensation communications to "KNOW" and especially "DO" with no assessment of feelings at all. They had a very cohesive culture, engaged employees and a no-frills engineering mindset, so this strategy worked well for them. "FEEL" was being treated effectively in other ways in the company. I don't know how many of us would describe our own company's culture as cheerfully cohesive these days, though.
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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