Category: Beyond Leadership

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

  • Inflation and Competitive Wages – What do these mean to You?

    Inflation and Competitive Wages – What do these mean to You?

    Are your company’s wages in line with the market? Inflation is often the topic of conversation in the news and in everyday conversation. I recently read an article about Social Security increases, the largest in more than a decade, is on the horizon; you can check the article out here: Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment Could be the Highest in 13 Years.

    What does that mean for individuals? It means you should know your worth, or rather, know what the going rate is for your role. I’m currently working on a wage compensation study and researched the Consumer Price Index to ensure rates were on track. It is currently 5.4%; that’s considerable. Here are a few free sources you can use to dig into wage data:

    O*Net – (enter job title, scroll down to Wage & Employment Trends, enter zip code)

    Salary.com – (look for “Individuals” What am I worth? Enter job title & location)

    What does this information mean for companies? Just this week, I’ve received more than one request for a proposal from companies wanting a compensation study. I’ve also had more than one conversation about how hard it is for companies to find employees. One way to combat that issue is to ensure you are paying at least the going rate for the positions you are seeking to fill. If you’d like to learn more about how Horizon Point can help with this, let us know! In the meantime, check out this case study from our website: Regional Wage Survey Case Study.

  • 6 Steps for Planning and Implementing Effective Extended Leave

    6 Steps for Planning and Implementing Effective Extended Leave

    Earlier in the week, our post was a reflection on why I will be taking a walkabout, or an extended amount of time away from work this fall.  Each person on our team will be taking four to six weeks off at some point within the next six months.  

    Whether it is taking time for intentional rest, reflection, and/or deep work or going out on maternity or extended sick leave, stepping away from anything at work requires preparation beforehand in order for the time away and the people providing support during the time away to be a success. Here is a roadmap for doing so: 

    1. Plan/proactively discuss with your team the timing of your absence and the roles and responsibilities they will have while you are away.  You can read more about my team’s discussion on the timing of my absence in the last post, but the next step in this for me has been thinking through and communicating with them about who will do what while I’m out. We will do the same as each person takes leave. Some things are natural, given that many of the projects I work on and the people I work with have at least two of our team members providing support.  There are some things where you may be the only person with a knowledge base for execution, so planning proactively gives you the time to provide cross-training, introductions, information, and or tools needed for success. 

    2. Communicate proactively with the external contacts you interact with regularly that you will be out with.  For the past two weeks, I’ve emailed or called every client and/or potential client that I interact with to let them know that I’m going to be out, for how long, what this means in terms of what they should or shouldn’t expect from me (for example, I will not be checking email during this time), and who their new point of contact will be on our team.  I will say that in doing this, EVERYONE I’ve talked to has been supportive and encouraging in taking the time away.  They are appreciative of the heads-up and connection(s) with our team for the project to continue in my absence. 

    3. Start saying “no” based on your scheduled time away.  In the past two weeks, I’ve said “no” to more things than I have in a long time.  Both personal and professional.  It really helps you realize how much stuff you say “yes” to without even thinking about it.  “Yes, my calendar is clear on the date you asked to meet with me, so yes, I’ll meet with you” happens a lot without a thought about whether or not the meeting is necessary or if you even want to meet with that person.  We commit to things without thinking about them and then wonder why we can’t find the time to do the most important things. It’s pretty liberating and reflective to take back your time. 

    4. Set guardrails and systems around being able to maintain your no and the margins the time away should provide.  I know my email will be a problem for me. It is the mechanism in which I say yes to most things because most things come in the form of calendar invites via email or requests for this or that via email.  So, for me, I will not be checking and responding to emails while I’m out.  To ensure I do this, someone on my staff will be changing my email password for me on the day I go out.  She will also check the box once a week to make sure there are no emergencies she and the team need to tend to (this will help me maintain my sanity of not checking it) and I will set up an out of office reply explaining that I’m out, points of contact for specific needs, and when I will return.  You may not need to go to the extreme of getting someone to change your password (if you do, you have a lot more self-control than I do, because checking email is such a habit for me), but know yourself well enough to deploy the guardrails needed for maintaining the integrity of your leave. This may mean deleting social apps on your phone, disconnecting your wifi (or getting someone to change your wifi password), or setting standard times around the do not disturb feature on your phone.  Figure out what you need and solicit any help needed to do so. 

    5. Reflect on what these planning exercises are telling you. As mentioned earlier, delegating responsibilities to others may help you realize they need to be cross-trained on a certain task or function to be successful.  Saying no because you’re going to be out may help you realize you need to say no indefinitely to certain things.  It may be telling you that you have a problem with your social media or email usage and need to get a healthy grip on it.  All these planning items can help you succeed in an absence and the reflection on them can help ensure long-term success upon your return. 

    6. Reflect on the purpose of your time away and what you hope to accomplish in taking it.   Before you go out, write down two or three things you want to focus your time on while out and post them for yourself in the form of yes or no questions you will see every day. Mine are: 1) Did you rest and restore today? 2) Did you read/research and write/create content today based on your purpose? 3) Did you play with your kids today?  Don’t overload yourself with more than three to four questions.

    Framing the questions in the second person as “you” has been shown to be helpful in training the brain to eliminate “chatter”. It gives your brain a word that naturally offers more grace than using the first person “I”.  Like the book, Chatter states, “Doing so (using ‘you’ to refer to yourself) is linked with less activation in the brain networks associated with rumination and leads to improved performance under stress, wiser thinking, and less negative emotion.” Some questions you may have if you’re recovering from surgery or bringing a newborn home may be: Did you rest today?  Did you do something to help your body recover today? Did you refrain from checking work email today?  You know what you need, so customize the questions for you. As you begin to heal and or accomplish what you want while you’re out, your questions may change. 

    Finally, you may not be at liberty to decide if and when you get to take an extended time away from work.  But if you are a person in a role where you can impact policy at your workplace, consider how you might drive the conversation around the need for people to take more than a standard week or less of vacation annually and what business results it might achieve.  At the very least facilitating dialogue around how you can provide autonomy by structuring work differently (four day work weeks, hybrid work arrangements, mental health days, etc.) in order to impact workplace wellbeing and productivity could lead to substantial gains in recruitment and retention.  If you’d like more information on the research related to this, see our previous post on readings for reflection.

  • Taking a Walkabout

    Taking a Walkabout

    It’s funny what will put you over the edge to make you bite the bullet on a decision you know you’ve been needing to make for quite some time. 

    Mine was a Hollywood movie star’s memoir.   Prone to reading a lot of business books and fiction, memoirs have become more and more of an interest for me in the last year or so, but not the pop culture icon type.  

    However, I’d heard a snippet of an interview with Matthew McConaughey on Sunday Today with Willie Giest on his bestselling memoir Greenlights and was intrigued. While in the airport in Dallas looking for the next thing to read, I saw it and picked it up.  While in Texas, why not read about a hot Texas boy’s life, I thought.  

    My husband and I were in Texas for the wedding of a dear family friend that was supposed to happen a year prior but was delayed due to COVID. I was about to finish my latest summer fiction and knew I needed something else to peruse sitting poolside at the swanky hotel we had booked on points.  I thought McConaughey’s reflection on his life so far would be another easy read just like the chick flick summer fiction I had finished reading and just like the movies I know him most for. 

    I was wrong.  It was a deeply reflective read.  A “Greenlight” McConaughey would say.  One I needed.

    ***

    The day before picking up the book, I was sitting on our back porch for a quarterly planning meeting with my team.  The vibe of the porch sets itself for a type of casualness that makes things feel not quite like work, but the setting was doing no such thing for all of us.  With computers in front of us and phones at our sides, we were all distracted.  One team member was concerned about this email, another concerned about this text message. I tried to talk about a topic while simultaneously trying to figure out why the heck lunch hadn’t been delivered yet through the Panera Bread app on my phone.  

    Trying to lay the groundwork for our plans for the next quarter, we were all lost in the distractions of right now. 

    The constant “distractions”  or stresses each of us had been faced with over the last year or so- all of a different variety- was seeming to take a toll in a similar fashion. My toll seemed to explode through the year of COVID. A year of constantly navigating the stress of the unknown which included never knowing if my kids were going to be home for “school” and therefore rendering it necessary for me to change all my work plans.   A year of trying to salvage one business before it even really began.  Feeling like I was never going to be able to make a plan and stick with it ever again was always at the forefront.  Not being able to plan is not how I’m wired.  

    Add to this a house fire that left us dislocated for a while and unexpected stress on some of the people I love the most and of which I could do nothing about, I felt like I was another person entirely.  The organized, type A, on top of things wife, mom, and business owner felt like I had all but vanished.  

    Maybe this had been coming on for more than just the time period of a global pandemic.  In looking back over pictures posted for our Horizon Point ten-year anniversary,  I realized I was pregnant in more than half of them.  During my decade of growing a business, I had been pregnant or nursing most of the time.

    So you might imagine that my toll was resulting in extreme fatigue.  Like, can’t shake it no matter how much you sleep fatigue. This all led me to be frustrated with everyone and everything, especially myself.  My husband had borne the brunt of this, although I would imagine some of the challenges of this toll brought to the forefront some important truths about the imbalance of expectations between men and women and the extra load I still seemed to carry at home and with the kids even though we both have demanding careers.  He is more involved and supportive than most men, but when I joked about having a COVID hangover, he looked at me like I was crazy.  The inconsistencies of juggling work and kids during a pandemic hadn’t been his burden to bear.  Nor had been growing human beings and nursing them. This is something I’m glad my husband and I are actively discussing and trying to address now. 

    Other tolls for the team resulted in two team members spending time in the emergency room in the spring with chest pains and other related issues.  Anxiety will tell the body something is wrong, and if it has to, it will get your attention by making you feel like you are having a heart attack.

    I had been worried about everyone’s health including mine and feeling some guilt about how I had maybe contributed to it all. 

    So in the midst of our distraction state, I stopped and broached a subject with my team that I had put on the agenda but we weren’t to yet.  Now was the time to call this to everyone’s attention. “I want us to consider all taking sabbaticals over the next few months,” I said. 

    I think that got their attention.  All looked up from their phones and computers. 

    I asked some questions, they asked some, there was some reluctance, some sparks of, wait, I think she is really serious. Is she?  She’s going to pay us not to work? 

    There was a discussion about what a sabbatical really is.  One team member suggested what would be most helpful she thought would be the opportunity to take a long weekend once a month.  I told her to block off her calendar for this if that is what she felt like would help.  She did.  I also told her to figure out when she wanted and needed the time for more of an extended break.  

    A week later she told me she needed that extended break sooner rather than later, and blocked off her calendar. 

    One team member said she was good right now. Her workload easing somewhat from the first quarter where she was almost drowning.  “I don’t need it right now, but someone else may,” she said. 

    I asked her to consider when she might need it, prompting some things that I knew might be coming up for her.  She emailed me the dates in early 2022 when she plans to take a little over a month off. 

    Another looked at me and I said, “I want you to pick a time period of four to six weeks to take off. And I want you to do it at a time where you can actually have some downtime, where you aren’t mired into pouring into all your kids’ activities too.”  

    She said she’d take the month of November. 

    “Block your calendar,” I said. 

    I am so blessed to have a fabulous team at my side.  We are all givers to the core, and I think that is what brings us a lot of competitive advantage in our business.  But, as the book Burnout describes, we all have “Human Giver Syndrome”.

    It states, “Human givers are expected to offer their time, attention, affection, and bodies willingly, placidly, to the other class of people ‘the human beings’.  The implication in these terms is that the human beings have a moral obligation to be or express their humanity, while human givers have a moral obligation to give their humanity to the human beings.”  The paragraph goes on to state, “Guess which one the women are.” 

    It’s time for all of us to get our humanity back. 

    I looked at the calendar before the meeting and felt as though taking mid-August through the first week in October would be the best time for me to take off.  One because there wasn’t much I’d committed to yet other than a speaking engagement in Florida, and two because I could flank my time with a fifteen-year anniversary trip with my husband and end it with a fall break trip with my family. 

    So it comes time for me to express my need for a sabbatical, and I’m hesitant to say when I want to take off.  My hesitance comes from two places.  First, because as one of our team members says every year, “Just wait until September” with the knowledge that September is always our busiest month. Can I take off during what we have seen to be over the past ten years the busiest month on the calendar for our business? And two, if I take this time period off, I’m going first. And “leaders eat last.”  

    Nonetheless, I share the time period I want with my team and lunch arrives.  The team member that has worked with me the longest accompanies me to the door to get the food. 

    “I don’t think I can take that time period off,” I say.  “It would mean me going first…” 

    She seems to know exactly what I mean by this. 

    “I think this would mean you are setting the example.  You don’t know how much an answer to a prayer you offering this to us is for me. And you need it too.”

    ***

    The first time I heard about sabbatical was my freshman year in college.  Assigned to write about really anything I wanted in a freshman honors seminar, I somehow chose the topic of the intersection of religion and politics in Alabama.  This is a topic that was interesting and complex almost twenty years ago and has gotten even more so in recent years. 

    In pouring through the literature and research on the topic, I came across a thesis called “The Least of These” by a law professor at The University of Alabama.  Whether she wrote this information or took the time to talk about the publication across the state and country while on sabbatical, I can’t recall, but what I remember is that she was able to produce such a work and promote it because she took time away from her regular work duties.

    Her piece was thought-provoking and thorough and one with which I aligned a lot of my thinking with. It’s taken me almost twenty years to realize that sabbatical, commonly taken in university settings as a “period of paid leave for study or travel” is also “of or appropriate to the sabbath.”   

    A period of rest.  A period of restoration.  Of which comes, in this professor’s case and what I hope to in mine, a period of time for deep thinking and work of which comes clarity and meaningful output.  Purpose-driven work that only undistracted time can produce.

    McConaughey calls this a “walkabout” in his memoir.  Describing a period in his life following the notoriety his role in A Time To Kill brought about, he evokes his own walkabout in his life.  Page 147 of his book  is a poem titled “why we all need a walkabout”:

    We need to put ourselves in places of decreased sensory input so we can hear the background signals of our psychological processes….

    In this solitude, we then begin to think in pictures, and actualize what we see….

    Whatever the verdict, we grow…

    We tend to ourselves and get in good graces once again.

    Then we return to civilization, able to better tend to our tendencies.

    Why? Because we took a walkabout. 

    I get it. I like it. 

    ***

    While in Dallas, I’ve gotten to have a mini walkabout.  I’ve spent time alone with my husband eating and drinking and socializing our way through Dallas on a wedding weekend. I’ve sat by a pool where someone delivered me freshwater before my glass was ever empty and a cocktail when I was ready. I read without interruption.  All things I’ve needed.  Or maybe all this extravagance is a want. First-world problems are what I’ve almost always had the fortune to have.

    But on Sunday afternoon, lounging by the pool with my husband and finishing McConaughey’s memoir, I realize that I’ve just begun to have enough time in my mini walkabout to think, to think deeply.  And it’s over.  Tomorrow I’ll go back to all the “sensory input” and to-dos.  To a beautiful life of course, with so much to be thankful for, but one in which I’m growing increasingly unable to see because I’m exhausted.

    I sit with my feet in the pool by my husband in silence.  We’ve gotten to the point in our trip where we’ve talked a lot to each other, caught up on a lot of things and thoughts, laughed a lot, and are now content to sit together silently.  It’s peaceful.  It’s reflective.

    I look up at the clouds.  There are white fluffy clouds moving one direction and above them, gray, wispy clouds moving the other. 

    “Look,” I say to my husband, “there are two kinds of clouds, moving in different directions. I’ve never seen that before.” 

    And I silently think that the gray ones are higher in the sky.   And I think I’d rather be that maybe moving in a different direction than the way I’ve been conditioned to move, but higher nonetheless.

    With that, I do something I don’t do much of if at all as I’ve aged- as life has gotten infinitely more complex and stressful but also infinitely more joyful all at once- I jump into the pool.   

    ***

    As I write this, I’m keenly aware of all the people in this world who don’t know nor may ever have the freedom to take a walkabout.  For the single mom who can’t break or pause because if she does, mouths won’t be fed and roofs won’t stay overheads.  To the employee who would be fired if they ever even attempted to suggest they needed more than one week at a time for a vacation.  Who would never allow themselves to take more than a few days at a time (and usually still work while “off”) because this is what their heads, their employer, and the world tells them they have to do to be “valuable.” 

    But all the research is there about how much people need rest and reprieve in order to be productive, in order to thrive, and in order to be creative.  To produce their best work. To be human.  I’ve been shocked by the number of conversations I’ve had just this week about people’s physical health crumbling because of the mental health issues they are dealing with by being overworked to the point of exhaustion.  Some of this is self-imposed, some of this is cultural and systematic, some of it is unique to the pandemic world we are living in, and some of it is due to technology. But none of it is good.   (If you’d like to delve into the research on how we got to this state and what it is doing to us, two good books to read are Do Nothing and Burnout.) 

    But as the professor who took a sabbatical to produce deep work impacted the conversation about tax policy in Alabama from a Christian perspective, so too might my time to rest and restore and to think deeply lead to more purposeful output that can impact these challenges I’m describing now.  Maybe it is a catalyst for impacting individual situations (like the single mom) and workplace mindsets that keep us all desperately needing a break. 

    Later in Greenlights, McConaughey describes another period in his life where he intentionally called a red light in order to wait for the best greenlight.  Realizing that the rom-coms he had become famous for served a purpose and a place- and created a whole heck of a lot of wealth for him- he was able to realize he wanted something different for himself.  A role with more purpose and meaning.  So he waited it out. For almost two years. 

    That waiting led him to win an Oscar.  

    And maybe, more importantly, it allowed him an opportunity to watch his young kids grow and be a dad without distraction.

    *** 

    I think one of the fondest memories my kids have of me is running full force in just shorts and a sports bra into the ocean to them.  While on vacation after an extremely hot run,  the only thing that seemed natural for me to do was to run full force into the ocean with half my running clothes still on.  Not prone to impulsivity and to having just a sports bra on without a top, my kids were shocked I think.  But after the jolt of the shock, they giggled and giggled.  We played and played.  And I cooled off.  They still talk about this and it happened almost three years ago. 

    I want my kids to see me more uninhibited, more fun, more free, less distracted, less frazzled.  I need to reset and maybe you do too. 

    Although I don’t have the runway of wealth that McConaughey did to support extended walkabouts in the form of years, the theory of it and the need for it is not lost on me.  I can take a month or two with it fulfilling the same intent.  I do have a fabulous team at work that will support things in my absence and I will support them in theirs as they each take their turn.

    By taking a walkabout, I hope I’m giving others a green light to do the same, of which comes the clarity to pursue things of true meaning and value.  Here’s to the possibility of diving in, either literally or metaphorically or both, into the beauty of the one life we each have to live and modeling for our kids and others that they have permission to do the same. 

     

     

    If you would like to dive further into reflection on this topic, here are some readings (some of which are referenced in the post) that I’ve found to be valuable: 

    Greenlights 

    Do Nothing 

    Burnout

    Scarcity 

    The Common Rule

    The 4 Day Week

    Fair Play

  • 5 Minute Memo for MOPs

    5 Minute Memo for MOPs

    Are you a MOP? MOPs are Managers of People, and whether you are leaning into long-term remote work or reacclimating to an in-person work environment, here’s a 5-minute memo to help you stay on track. 

    1. Go easy — on yourself and others. There’s been a shakeup. Remember that we are all People First. We are People First in the sense that we are not ______ first (insert managers, leaders, bosses, etc.), and we should be People First in the way we manage and lead others. 
    2. Be inclusive — Everyone has a different story. Remember to acknowledge, respect, welcome, and celebrate differences. Try these 4 Exercises with yourself, your team, and/or organization. Use your influence to create a psychologically safe workplace. 
    3. Be flexible — Have you ever needed to leave work early to pick up a child from school? Ever struggled to schedule a doctor’s appointment around your work hours? Do you or someone you know live with depression? Flexibility feeds physical and mental health for you and your team and directly supports organizational productivity and success.  
    4. Train, develop, coach — It can be easy for MOPs to be laser-focused on people management and miss opportunities for people development. Think of the old adage: You can’t see the forest for the trees. Let’s be mindful of the forest and dedicate some time to training and developing our team members. 
    5. Evaluate — Continuous improvement requires consistent, meaningful evaluation. What’s working well? What isn’t? Evaluation doesn’t have to be complex or formal; it can be as simple as stopping by a coworker’s desk and asking for feedback on a recent communication or project (note to self: time this right, when they’re not swamped, and depending on your work relationship, you may want to give them a heads up). 

    Looking for more resources for MOPs? Subscribe to The Point Blog 

     

  • 3 Ways to Think about levels of Pay + A “Bonus”

    3 Ways to Think about levels of Pay + A “Bonus”

    As you can tell from our previous post on all the hiring incentives that are out there now, it is a job-seekers market. 

    A recent LinkedIn update titled “Power shifts in a tight job market” summarizes what employers are doing to lure people to their open positions:  

    Employers eager to fill positions are offering more to attract talent — and they aren’t just upping pay or showing more flexibility — they’re also training workers and taking more chances on people who don’t meet traditional qualifications. “No experience necessary” roles have spiked by two-thirds compared to 2019, and posts offering starting bonuses have doubled, according to new data from Burning Glass Technologies. Meanwhile, minimum compensation requirements for people without college degrees are up 19%, per a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey.

    There are multiple factors impacting the supply and demand for labor. But it’s not just filling positions, it’s also about keeping people in positions.  Particularly acute in production and manual service workers,  a Conference Board report cites strong retention challenges: 

    As we think about what can be done to impact the recruiting and retention challenges of today, it may be wise to think about how you think about pay. Obviously, employers are increasing their wages. Historically, as you can see from the chart below, wages have not kept pace with productivity, so rising wage rates may help to impact this equilibrium. 

    But until we think about pay differently, honing in on what each level of pay actually provides, we may not be able to effectively impact the outcome of increases in pay on worker recruitment and retention. 

    Adam Grant, in his podcast WorkLife provides a framework for three ways to think about wages in the episode titled “Why It Pays to Raise Pay” and I’ll add one more as a bonus that he and his guests allude to: 

    1. Living Wage: Living wages provide what people need to be able to provide for their basic needs.  Living wages allow people to meet the lower-order needs found in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that you see below.  They provide for survival, and to a certain extent safety and security. (Other factors may impact safety and security needs being met beyond wages, as for example, safety not being present in a domestic violence situation of a wealthy family.) 

     

    Maslow would tell you in order for people to move up the hierarchy to things that provide motivation at work, you have to at least meet these lower order needs.  By and large, pay is what provides for this.

    What do you think a living wage is where you are? You can find out here: https://livingwage.mit.edu/

    For example, here is Alabama’s data: 

    Some of these numbers were quite surprising to me.  Be sure you look at the information on how these rates are determined here.  Although you (and I) may not agree with all the things included in this living wage, what I find most fascinating here is this data seems to imply that most people with children really need two incomes to reach a living wage by combining their incomes. In addition, it is evident through the data how much of an impact childcare costs play into the variability of a living wage.  

    On a personal note, a ministry we’ve started through the Neighborhood Christian Center is helping one single mother provide a bridge for childcare expenses right now until she can see if she qualifies for a government subsidy program to help pay for their childcare.  She has three young children and no support from their father.  The cost for the three of them to attend daycare so she can work would require her to make $13.50 an hour JUST to cover daycare costs. Her pay rate right now is $10.00 an hour.

     

    2. Fair Wage.   A fair wage, I simply define as a market wage rate by position.  Grant defines fair wage as “a living wage plus an amount that reflects an employees’ value for the organization or in the labor market.” 

    What is a fair wage where you live based on the positions you hire?

    Just to give an example, here is the market wage in Alabama for a Production/Manufacturing Operator as reported from one of the subscription market wage sources we use: 

    It is interesting to compare these market rates to the living wage rates.  Oftentimes, it appears as though market or “fair” rates are actually below living wage rates.  

    3. Generous Wage.  A generous wage Grant defines as a shift in thinking to what the purpose of pay actually is.  He says, “Instead of thinking of pay as a way to incentivize people, think of it as a symbol of how much you value them.  When people feel valued, they add value.” 

    It’s easier to get concrete data to define what a living and fair wage is, but a generous wage is so ambiguous.  It means different things to different people and to different organizations. 

    Grant provides a couple of concrete case studies in the podcast that can help you think through what generous wages look like. For example, PayPal committed to paying generous wages and defined it through measuring net disposable income, which is the money you have leftover after taxes and paying for all essential living expenses.  The threshold they set for employees was having 20% of their take-home pay be in this category.  

    It can’t be understated, however, that in order to work, generous pay has to be combined with a bonus. And that bonus isn’t monetary. 

    4. Necessary Bonus: Treat people holistically.  In order for a generous wage structure to work, it has to be predicated with the mindset of believing in people.  This isn’t throwing money at a problem in order to fix it.  That won’t work. One of Grant’s guests on the podcast states that companies who don’t or can’t get on board with this mindset, “Don’t believe in people. They don’t have the faith in a person’s ability to do a good job in their motivation and in their competence. And of course, in public companies, there is a tremendous emphasis on the short term and a lot of executive’s compensation is tied to short term performance….. Another thing that gets in the way is mediocrity is a lot easier to pursue than excellence.” 

    As she says, it’s easy to say, “Pay as little as you can.” That doesn’t take a lot of thought. But thinking about “how high you should go? How much should you empower your people?” takes a lot more work.

    I hope this framework of thinking about pay provided here through the WorkLife podcast will, at a minimum, provide some food for thought for you to pursue excellence instead of mediocrity. 

    What will you do next to lead your company’s compensation policy? 

     

    Author’s Note/Opinion:  

    I am a capitalist at heart. This isn’t about paying people wages that do not allow for-profits or distributing wealth in a socialist way, it’s about paying wages that maximize profits and it’s about businesses taking ownership of generous pay, not the government being in charge of redistribution of wealth.  

    If businesses took ownership in paying people at least a living wage and hopefully seeing how profits can be maximized with generous wages, the government wouldn’t have to interfere in the market to impact the widening income gap in America.  I believe that much of what is going on now when it comes to why people are sitting out of the labor market due to making as much or more on government subsidies, is a result of wages not having risen past the recession rates of 2008-2009 and that was more than ten years ago now.   

    It’s time for businesses to take an honest look at their role in the problem instead of pointing fingers at everyone else and trying to put out a fire that has been kindling for a long time with a shot in the dark sign-on bonuses and other short term bandaids to entice people to work but that totally negate the need to do the hard work of building better workplaces where people actually want to work and stay. 

    If you listen to the entire WorkLife podcast here, you’ll see that one company engaging in this type of excellence around pay mindset has seen their revenue triple, their customer base double, and their workforce growing by 70%.  Taking a thoughtful look at your wages just isn’t the right thing to do for people to be able to earn a living, it’s the smart thing to do when it comes to maximizing your business’ potential.