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and my students who reward me.
Introduction
Where Theres Smoke, Theres Fire
I cant live on what Im making now, she said, holding back tears.
Her name was Sarah, and she was in her bosss office, giving him an ultimatum. She was in her early twenties at the time, and shed been busting her butt for that company for over two years when shed finally had enough.
She handed the CEO her personal budget, which included everything down to the pennyexcept for rent because she was living with her parents to make ends meet.
The CEO looked at her in surprise.
She said, Do you think Im doing good work for you?
Of course you are.
Then why dont you pay me like it?
Luckily, the CEO came to me to get help. I met with Sarah individually, and she showed me her budget the same way she did with the CEO. Now, Ive been consulting people on compensation for decades, but Sarah was the first and only person Ive ever worked with who was so desperate that she shared her personal budget with me.
Yeah, it was that bad.
Although she didnt have the experience to say it, what she was trying to communicate to her CEO and to me was, I think Im being paid below market, but I have no idea if thats right. All I know is that I cant live like this anymore.
With the CEOs help, I got my hands on her job description and did a market analysis. It turns out that her instinct was right: based on the market, she was underpaid by about $10,000 a year. She felt like she was underpaid, and she was. Where theres smoke, theres fire.
I took the results to the CEO.
What do you think we should do? he said.
Pay her at market rategive her the $10,000 increase.
What if she leaves?
Shes guaranteed to leave right now if you keep making her live like this. At least youll have a chance if you give her the increase.
He gave Sarah the increase, and she was thrilled. Fast forward three years, and she was finally able to move out of her parents house and buy a home of her own.
Sarah mustered a lot of guts to finally speak up about being underpaid. But what if she hadnt? And what about the months, or even years, that people in your organization are suffering in silence, all because they suspect theyre underpaid, but dont speak up because they cant be sure?
You dont realize it until its too latewhen hardworking people like Sarah leave your organization, and youre left looking at the embers of their departure. You may never see the signals like smoke filling the office, alerting you to a fire you were never trained to see.
Whats Your Philosophy?
More often than not, when people leave a company, its because of compensation issues. Without a well - defined compensation program and a philosophy to drive it, youll continue losing good people, and youll continue to have no idea why.
But heres the kicker: even when people are paid well, if they dont know why theyre paid wellbecause you dont have a definite compensation plan and havent communicated it to themthey will still be dissatisfied.
Everyone assumes compensation expertise means you just run a bunch of numbers and do analysis. Thats only partially true. Its as much art as it is science. Theres a lot of judgment and independent decision - making involved, and yeah, its a bit of analysis, but its not what you think it is.
Dont let the math scare you. Im going to demystify everything, including the numbers, to help you blend the science and art of compensation to become a compensation expert. Im going to teach you how to analyze every job in your organization so you can find its equivalent in the external market, and how to use that information to incentivize your employees to get the happiest high - performers money can buy.
Are you ready to become a compensation expert?
Chapter 1
How Important Is Pay?
How to Define Your Compensation Objectives
Pay isnt the most important thing in the world.
As an HR professional, youd be shocked how often I hear that sentence. More often than not, that sentiment comes from people in leadership roles who dont have any immediate worries about their pay. But whats at the forefront of employees minds when the unexpected happens?
What do people worry about when a natural disaster hits, like Hurricane Katrina? Or what about a global pandemic, or government employees in a shutdown, or a nationwide recession when people get laid off and go from steady paychecks to applying for unemployment?
Theyre not thinking about whether they like their manager or whether they have free massage days once a month at the office. Theyre thinking, When will I see another paycheck? (This may come immediately after their thoughts of health and their familys safety, but Id argue that their next paycheck is directly tied to that as well.) When our livelihoods are threatened, were faced with the stark reality that in all actuality, pay is the most important thing for employees. Its the tool that allows your employees to do everything else they need to do.
From a leadership perspective, pay is actually the most important thing in the world to your business. Why? Because compensation is the number one cost in your organization. When you think about it, nothing even comes close. Benefits might come second, and inventory might be a close third, but payroll is the horse to beat.
Inevitably, that puts you at odds with your employees; you want to control the cost of labor to make your company as profitable as possible, but your employees (understandably) want to make more money. Its a problem that every organization faces. But its a necessary problem to solve. In this chapter, Ill give you an overview of the perfect compensation system. That way, youll have a full understanding of the big picture before we get into the details. What are the details? How to solve the compensation problem so you can strike a payroll balance that works best for you and your employees.
The Perfect Compensation System
Throughout this book, Ill help you develop a perfect compensation system. Well, let me rephrase thatbecause compensation is as much art as it is science, Ill help you develop a near - perfect system. This system is based on four pillars of policy decisions. They are:
- Internal Consistency This involves collecting information about the nature of specific jobs in your organization and compiling documents that describe those jobs. It also requires you to compare jobs and order them from high to low based on the value they provide to your organization.
- External Competitiveness This is a process by which you do a market analysis to establish a pay policy. That process requires you to do salary surveys and compare your internal rates to external salaries in other organizations.
- Employee Contributions This part of the system requires you to review your employees performance against well - defined performance standards, both in your industry and within your organization. Based on those standards, you will also create a process that rewards people based on merit, rather than seniority, gender, or other biased metrics.