Compensation- Getting it Right

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This time of year brings all the excitement of the holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah, among others.  Amid all the festivities, for many organizations, it brings Compensation planning activities including revisions of salary structures, decisions on merit increases, promotions, adjustments and bonuses.  Before you say “Bah Humbug” let’s take a closer look at how to structure a compensation plan and why it’s so important to your organization. 

For all of the articles out there espousing compensation as a short term motivator, compensation speaks to our employees.  It tells a story of how we perceive their value in the workplace.  There is little that is more important than the value one sees in oneself and that is partly determined by the value others place on us and our contributions.

Ask Questions

You have to start out by asking the right questions in order to determine what your company’s compensation strategy should be.  It’s OK not to have all the answers, they will provide topics for discussion with your internal teams.

What are your goals?   

It’s important to know what problem you are trying to solve before you launch into a strategy to solve it.  Do you have excessive turnover?  Are you having a hard time attracting candidates?  Are you losing your high potential employees at an alarming rate?  Do you need to focus certain groups on different goals

How would you define your market?

Is it defined solely based on a geography you are in?  Do you need to include competitors outside of your geographical regions?  Is it domestic or do you have international competitors as well?  Sometimes, you can get a good clue to identifying this by asking where do your employees come from, and where do they go when they leave?

How competitive do you need to be?   

Some disciplines like Big Data are highly competitive and there may only be a handful of candidates that everyone is competing for.  On the other hand, if your positions are relatively common and there are many candidates available, you may be able to set you target closer to the 50th percentile and be just fine

What and how should you reward?  

What behavior do you want to reinforce and what types of rewards will you give?  The most effective plans focus on a Purpose Statement and/or Guiding Principles.  Your rewards should ultimately drive the culture you are trying to create.  Even monetary rewards come in many different forms.  They could be merit increases, promotions, short term or long term cash incentives.

All of the above questions will help to guide you toward the most effective compensation strategy for your organization and drive employee productivity forward. 

 

Let leaders lead

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Most who enter the Human Resources disciplines due so out of a desire to help others and to help the organization to align their employee workforce with the goals of the company to further productivity.  Often times, however, we forget to let our leaders lead.  Especially as an organization grows, HR functions need to adopt a “train the trainer” approach more than a train everyone approach.  Although enlightened organizations put their full support and resources into HR functions, the team still has a responsibility to be able to scale the organization without adding significant numbers of HR team members.  Efficiency is key.

Train- the- trainer

A train-the-trainer model allows experienced trainers to show a less-experienced individuals how to deliver courses, workshops and seminars. http://work.chron.com/train-trainer-model-5463.html Usually, a new instructor first observes a training event led by the course designer. A train-the-trainer approach can build a pool of competent instructors who can then teach the material to other people. Instead of having just one instructor who teaches a course for a long time, you have multiple instructors teaching the same course at the same time. This ensures that employees get timely training to complete tasks according to company policies and procedures.

Identify SME’s

SME’s or subject matter experts exist in all corners of the organizations and at all levels.  It is a fairly good bet that your excel gurus are not sitting in the corner office.  Tap those resources!  Find out how has a skill set that the rest of the organization could benefit from and engage the SME to deliver the training. This serves two purposes.  One, it enhances your pool of trainers and two, it gives well deserved recognition to a group of people who might be overlooked otherwise, further engaging them in the business.  

Step out of the way

The inclination is to teach every class to every audience, but the real goal is to get the training out to a broad audience in a timely manner.  Like a proud parent, you need to teach your junior trainers your techniques, ensure that they know their material, do a few dry runs with them and then let them launch.  Will it be perfect, no. Will it improve with time, yes and will you gain far more by engaging your workforce then trying to do it all yourself, a big YES!

Training is not a one and done.  It is a process over an unending period of time that, done correctly, not only teaches a new skill, but also engages and inspires a workforce to do greater things both in their work and personal lives.

Time management

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There have been copious articles written about time management and everyone no doubt has their favorite strategies. The below are a few that I have found to be helpful in the workplace and in life in general.

 

Know yourself

Part of being a good time manager is knowing what behaviors prevent you from managing your time effectively. The link below gives you a quick summary spreadsheet for determining what your behavior is to day and what your behavior should be in the future to maximize your time. It is helpful to know when your energy is at its peak- is that early morning, late night or somewhere in between. This will help you to plan critical activities for when your energy level is the highest.

 

Multi-task

I know this is contrary to many time management theories out there, but wherever possible, multi-task, especially when something does not require your full attention. When you give up the idea of doing only one thing at a time and look for ways to do two, you can get a whole lot more done. Some quick examples: If you’re on the West coast, schedule East Coast calls on your drive into work. Owe the Far East a call back, pop in your earbuds and make the call while you’re making dinner. 6:00pm pst is around 8:00am there.

 

Touch each e-mail or piece of paper once

This one is big. We all have a tendency to want to “think about” it for a bit and then answer which is likely the answer you would have given in the first place. Force yourself, unless there is truly research that is needed, to answer right away.

 

Start the night before

A big time saver is to lay out your next day the night before. This allows you to hit the ground running in the morning and not have to stop and get organized. Know what you need to accomplish that day, in terms of key deliverables and follow up items.

Get your follow up items out early so that it allows people time to work on them during the day.

 

Take a break

While this may sound counterintuitive, often times taking a quick 10 minute break will help you to re- focus and complete a task in a shorter amount of time than if you had stayed with it past your ability to really focus.

 

Determine what is urgent and what isn’t

Not every e-mail that comes in must be answered right away. Some of the best time managers only answer their e-mails 1-2 times/day. You would be amazed at how many strings of conversation there are where you are only peripherally involved and if you just let them play out, you can catch the last e-mail and be completely up to speed.

 

Everyone has strategies that work better for them than others. Don’t be afraid to try 20 or 3- and then pick the top 5 that really do save you time and increase efficiency.

Find Success Through Better Time Management

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It’s no secret that time management is an important part of creating a happier, more successful life overall.  Everyone, no matter what their career path, will have a moment where they feel as though their workload is unmanageable or overwhelming. While that moment may be fleeting for some, it could very well be a persistent feeling for others. The key to finding success rests in how one responds to that feeling of inundation at work.

A healthy approach to time management will help workloads feel more manageable, instill a better sense of work-life balance, and ultimately lead to a more successful career overall.

 

Why is Time Management Important for Your Career?

For one, there’s only so much time in a day. Our time is limited, and it’s important to use available time wisely. Deadlines wait for no one, and superiors will make note of your ability to make deadlines within the allotted time constraints. When time is managed poorly, quality of work may suffer, or worse, work may not be completed at all.  It will be difficult to excel in any career path if you’re experiencing difficulty getting work finished.

Time management also allows for you to create a timeline to meet larger career-oriented goals. True success never happens overnight. Rather, success comes from careful planning and small steps that will eventually cumulate to become your end goals. Mastering time management is not only important when it comes to plotting necessary, smaller goals on a timeline, it helps you follow through with those goals in an efficient manner.

 

So How Does One Get Better at Managing Their Time?

There are innumerable lists of tips and tricks available to increase your ability to manage your time. But the most important thing to understand is that true time management comes from a complete change of perspective. In order to be successful at managing your time, you have to make a promise to yourself to remain committed to the changes you make. It’s about changing your long-term habits, and focusing on making a positive change. Keeping that overall change in mental state in mind, start with these two major steps to better time management:

Start Planning Your Weeks

There are certain things that we will always have to do on a daily (or weekly) basis. On Sunday nights, set aside some time to work on your calendar. Schedule out specific chunks of time for checking your email. (Once in the morning, once before & after lunch, and once around 3:30pm is a schedule that may work for you. Tailor this schedule to your specific job.) By setting aside specific times for your email, you avoid the timesink that can come from being constantly connected to your email. Schedule in lunch, coffee breaks, and any recurring meetings as well.  When all of the recurring tasks are blocked in, schedule in all of the tasks that you already know need to be completed that week. This may need to be adjusted based on what happens during the week, and that leads us to our next topic:

Learn to Prioritize

In most work environments, it’s easy to get caught in the revolving door of tasks that land on your desk. It’s important to determine which tasks are the most important, and stick to working on/completing those tasks first. Those crucial projects should never fall to the wayside of the smaller one-off tasks that come your way. Get the tasks with the highest priority checked off of your list of things to do that day, and work your way down to the smaller tasks.

Time Management is hugely important to your overall success. Start with these two steps, and then branch out. Find other tips that work for you, and then, find your success!


For sources and additional resources, please see the following articles: CreativityPost, Career Success , Forbes