I remember my first two weeks of college. As a freshman at The University of Alabama, known when I was there as the number two party school in the nation (unlike the rank in college football which has risen significantly since I’ve been there, I think the rank in partying has gone down), I went out every night for the first two weeks. There was always a party going on. I realized rather quickly after classes started that there was no way I was going to be able to maintain the party schedule and make it. I’m glad I came
At the recommendation of the Alabama Society of Human Resource Management’s Wellness Director, I downloaded a copy of Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath and Jim Harter. The book describes the five essential elements of wellbeing (in order of importance) to be: Career Social Financial Physical Community The authors emphasize how each element is intricately interwoven with each other. Here are some tips for maximizing work wellbeing by seeing wellbeing from a holistic perspective: Don’t be a workaholic. “While you might think that people with high career wellbeing spend too much time working, they actually take more time
I’m going to contradict myself (again). I seem to do this a lot, outlining a way to be process oriented by designing a traditional talent management program. We’ve done this over the last couple of weeks by describing how to do job analysis, job descriptions and design a compensation plan. But the key to knowing how to design any talent management program is to know yourself, or rather know your company. For mid to large companies, having job descriptions and a wage structure to define how you compensate people is more than likely completely necessary. It keeps things consistent, fair
We’re working on a compensation project now with a company to redesign their exempt salary structure. When thinking about how to best design a system, it’s important to realize there are two key factors: Internal Equity– Are you paying people fairly compared to what other people within the organization are making based on the knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role? External Competitiveness– Are you paying what the market demands for certain knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role in order to recruit and retain people? Basic steps to consider when designing a compensation structure: You gotta do
Out looking for a job or considering a discussion with your boss about a raise? If you are, you need to do your research to consider what the knowledge, skills and abilities you have are worth in the marketplace and to the company in which you work or are negotiating with. (Note: The best time to negotiate your worth is before you accept a job. Once you get locked in a job and a salary range, usually the only way to get a substantial raise is to switch jobs either through a promotion or a move to another organization.)