Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

Get a best friend at work and other tips on work and life wellbeing

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 to enjoy life, have better relationships, and don’t take things for granted. They love what they do each day.”

Get a work best friend. “Our research revealed that just 30% of employees have a best friend at work. Those who do are seven times as likely to be engaged in their jobs, are better at engaging customers, produce higher quality work, have higher wellbeing and are less likely to get injured on the job.”

Salary matters, but it isn’t everything. “Generally, those who have a lot of money can do what they want when they want to do it. Money can increase short-term happiness by giving us more control over how we spend our time, whether that means a shorter commute, more time at home with family or additional social time with friends.” And “What we found was that financial security- the perception that you have more than enough money to do what you want to do- has three times the impact of your income alone over overall wellbeing. Further, the lack of worry about money has more than double the impact of income over wellbeing.”

Being engaged in your work leads to giving back to the greater community. “In one organization we studied, workers who were the most engaged in their jobs donated 2.6 times more than those who were not engaged in their careers.” We agree. Read more at Passion + Productivity = Give Back

How does your work wellbeing impact other areas of your wellbeing?

August 25, 2014
Throwing compensation structure out the window

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 and easier to administer.

However, in a world where jobs are constantly changing and therefore the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to define jobs are also constantly changing, defining a job based on hard and fast definitions and then trying to recruit and retain employees based on these hard a fasts may be a tremendous challenge.

Another approach

Instead of defining a job and recruiting to that description, find the superstars, those who know how to constantly learn and adapt in a fast-paced world, and hire them, then define the job around them. Pay them what they demand (the superstars know how much they are worth) and then temper their demands with a structure that incentivizes results your company needs them to achieve.

Notice this doesn’t mean ever defining the job, but it does mean that you may do it after you make the hire. We’re pretty adamant about defining the job through the behaviors you want people to exhibit and the results you want them to achieve in order to measure and reward performance.

We’re in the process as a small company of doing this now. A compensation structure is not what we need to recruit and retain people at this time. What we need is a superstar or two that understands the core of what we do (career development and talent management) and has experience in it, reflects our company values, and is motivated by achieving the results we need achieved.

One day we may need a defined compensation structure, but right now it isn’t what we need, so we aren’t going to try to cram ourselves into a traditional process that may inhibit our ability to recruit and retain talent. Your company, on the other hand, may need to structure in order to recruit and retain talent. Realizing the outcome we all want is great talent that stays doesn’t mean we all get to that end result the same way.

What processes (or unprocesses) do you have in place to make sure you get the talent you need?

August 21, 2014
Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

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 a job description. In considering the factors of internal equity and external competitiveness, both of these hinge on knowing the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for the jobs in which we you trying to define a compensation structure. Read more about performing job analysis and what a job description needs here (link back to previous post).

Get market data. For external equity, you need to know what the market pays for the jobs you have.

Some sources for market data:

Career One Stop

Salary.com

Salary Expert

BLS

Define compensable factors. Compensable factors are based on what the organization places a value on (internal equity) in order to differentiate the value of roles. For example, education is a compensable factor. In general, positions that require a bachelors degree have a higher value placed on them than those that only require a high school diploma.

Create the structure. Creating the structure takes the information defined in the previous steps to create salary grades and ranges. Grades are the hierarchy of the salary structure (grouped by jobs with relative worth) and ranges are the minimum and maximum established within grades. Using compensable factors for each job, you will then place each job into the appropriate salary grade.

Create a Salary Administration Manual. In order to make sure that the structure you created is implemented appropriately, a salary administration manual needs to be created. The manual should include a description of the newly created structure, administrative procedures governing the structure and guidelines for annual salary increases. In addition, it should contain ways to keep the program up-to-date through a periodic systematic review of the structure.

Designing and creating a compensation system seems like a daunting task. But if you take things step-by-step, you’ll see that it can be manageable. More importantly, if done correctly it can add tremendous value to your organization by helping you recruit, retain and reward talent appropriately.

August 18, 2014
2 Ways to Get What You’re Worth

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.)

Get the facts about what you’re worth in the market.

The first thing to do is compare what you do with salary data that is free out there. Some places to look review salary data:

Career One Stop

Salary.com

Salary Expert

BLS

Take all these sources and compile them to average out what an overall market range is for your role. Having the facts about what the market will pay for your skills will help you create a case for your value.

Know what you’re worth to the organization and suggest that worth be tied to your compensation package.

Next, you need to consider how you will or are currently adding value to the organization that may be outside the scope of the traditional job description tied to published salary data. If you are, we suggest instead of trying to get that value quantified through a salary, really prove this worth by suggesting that part of your compensation be tied to that extra value you add. You don’t get that extra unless you create a win-win for the company.

For example, if you are awesome at looking at company processes, realizing where there are inefficiencies and cutting costs which leads to increased profitability and margins, gather your numbers and facts and present a case to get a share as a part of your compensation of that increase profitability you created or know you can create.

If, through your efforts, you are able to bring in more clients or business, quantify this and request part of your compensation be tied to a cut of the increased revenue that comes from your efforts.

Most employers will be impressed with the initiative you take to tie your results to company results. Yeah, its riskier to not have it all in guaranteed in salary, but the alternative is more than likely a 2-3% increase a year and no one gets rich off this.

How do you make a case for your value?

Want more? You may also like:

Know Your Value

Why you should STOP being afraid of negotiating salary

August 14, 2014
Now don’t go changing your compensation structure without….

You’re worried you’re not attracting the right talent or that you aren’t able to keep good talent around for long and you think it might be because of your salary structure. Before you launch into a compensation structure overhaul (we’ll tell you how to do this next week on the blog), you need to:

Know for sure that the reason you are having the problems you are having is in fact compensation related. It may be that all your supervisors are jerks and people may leave even if you paid them twice as much. Surveying employees, especially through exit interviews is a good way to do this. Also, getting a quick snapshot to see if you are externally competitive in compensation in your area is also advisable.

Some sites to spot check your wage rates with the market (Make sure you search based on your market. If you are just competing for talent locally, then search by your metropolitan area, not the entire nation):

Career One Stop

Salary.com

Salary Expert

BLS

Do a job analysis and write job descriptions. You can’t accurately design a compensation structure without defining what jobs require. This helps you compare jobs both internally and externally.

A job analysis can be done in several ways:

Job observation

Job questionnaire to the people in the roles and their managers

Review of job logs or reports

Structured panels

A combination on any of these

Reviewing occupational information can help you frame any of the above or help you check the data you’ve gathered against standard responsibilities based on job title

A job analysis needs to gather what is required to perform the job. (This is a really short way of saying this; there are many purposes of job analysis because it is the basis of any talent management intervention. Read more about the things needed in job analysis based on what you are trying to accomplish here.)

A job description needs to include:

Date description was written

Job status (exempt, non-exempt; full or part time)

Title

Purpose of the role

Reports to

Job summary (outline of responsibilities of the role)

Knowledge, skills and abilities required as well as education and experience required

Essential Functions for ADA purposes

Tasks and Responsibilities of the job

Physical factors of the job (environment where the job is performed) and working conditions (overtime requirements, shift)

The disclaimer that the description is not designed to cover a comprehensive listed of everything the job entails (the other duties as assigned statement)

Once you have gone through these two steps, you are ready to start with a compensation redesign if you have determined through Step 1 that is what you need. Check back on the blog soon to see how to do this.

Do you need a compensation overall or something entirely different?

August 11, 2014