Compensation Audit: Checking Where You’re At

Over the course of a few years, things can dramatically change for employees. They could be in new positions, new departments can be created, and other functions of the business might change or

even be removed.

Does your compensation system reflect those changes?

Information is critical to a company’s success, especially when leaders rely on that information to make decisions. As we see a push to more data-driven decision-making, companies need to perform more audits to ensure that their systems have clean data. Just a few errors could cost millions of dollars.

Whether titles no longer relate to the work employees do or salaries need some calibration, it’s time to take stock of where your company is at with its compensation information.  

First, get employee information up-to-date. Having a SaaS system for employee information is a great way to make sure employees keep their information up-to-date. This can be through your HRIS or an employee portal. Send a reminder to employees to update their information, with managers checking titles and workgroup information of their employees.

Second, check salaries. Even if all of your salaries aren’t eligible for calibration against market rates, you can start with key positions. You then need to make a plan to calibrate all other positions, whether by department, type, or location. Ideally, you perform this as new positions are created, as new employees are hired, and when it’s time for annual rewards.

Third, run reports when you can. Many systems have standard reports, but make sure you’re identifying the information you really need to make good decisions. For example, you might want to compare performance data against compensation information, so that would require further analytics. These reports, though, help give context to compensation information in your company. Context helps you know why something might be happening or what other factors could be modified to get the desired results.

Get into the habit of conducting these audits early so your information is clean and ready to be used to make decisions. You’ll better inform your executives and help them understand what it takes to plan for the future.

Why Learning on the Go Is So Important

As companies try to diversify their learning programs and make training available across a variety of mediums, they’ve been forced to consider how mobile fits into the learning picture. Let’s face it — our phones are an extension of ourselves now:

·       79 percent of users check their phone within the first 15 minutes of waking up

·       70 percent of smartphone users frequently check Facebook

·       78 percent keep up with email on smartphones

Phones keep us connected and help us be productive (and increasingly more social). So when companies begin to update their traditional training programs, mobile has to be a part of the process.

Mobile makes previously irrelevant information relevant. Think about going to a training class that had workbooks and exercises about a product or service you don’t actively use. Sure, the information is helpful, but it’s not retained if it isn’t needed. Then four months down the line, suddenly that training becomes applicable. Is the information still in your brain? Probably not.

Mobile access to just-in-time training gets employees the information they need, when they need it. Salespeople are great examples of employees who are always on the go and need information literally at their fingertips. They can brush up on facts or get updates while sitting in a waiting room, riding a train, or standing around the luggage carousel.

When thinking about adding mobile components to your training, make sure you identify the most important information needed. Transferring a 40-page workbook to a PDF might make access easier, but those 40 pages won’t be helpful on a phone. Instead, identify a quick list of talking points. You can also do a short podcast (and by short, we mean two minutes) of an instructor giving an overview. 

You can always have workbooks, simulations, and additional instructor-led training as part of your learning program. As you think about training with mobile devices in mind, you’ll also start identifying ways to prioritize information for other mediums as well.

Making Performance Management Part of the Daily Routine

We’ve all done it — once a year, we set goals we don’t revisit until the next year rolls around. It’s

why performance management doesn’t seem to work. It also makes it really easy for people to skate along, doing well but perhaps not going above and beyond.

Measuring great performance requires understanding where the baseline is and enforcing that every day. Daily performance management not only encourages the right behaviors, it also helps address any concerns early on, before they become problems. Employees can stick to the right goals, and management can align performance with the business’s needs.

Here are tips on how to make performance management part of the daily interactions you have with employees:

·       Break goals into actionable items: Large goals that require a year to accomplish can be daunting. But if you break the goal into smaller items, you can include how someone could work daily toward accomplishing that goal. Then when you do regular check-ins, it’s much easier to talk about progress.

·       Find ways to recognize good performance: Whether your company has an official recognition program or not, take time to say, “Good job,” when an employee is performing well. Make the recognition as specific as possible, especially if it relates to one of their goals. For example, if an employee built an internal enablement guide that also included engaging messaging and creative design (just like an ad campaign), say, “Good job applying marketing practices to internal training to help us increase adoption.”

·       Adjust as you go: Goals set at the beginning of the year might have to change over time. Making performance management part of a daily routine means it’s much easier to see when a goal might need to be modified or corrected. Check to make sure that adjusting the goal still fits into the company’s strategy. By updating the goal, it’s more likely the employee will succeed than if the goal and the daily work are no longer aligned.

Performance management can be effective if it’s part of daily management practices. It might require managers to be more proactive about goals and define action items with employees if internal performance software or processes aren’t set up for that level of detail. But the results will be worth it if you make the extra effort.

Customizing Performance Reviews for Higher Education

Faculty and staff populations at universities are filled with people who have been doing the same thing for many years, as well as new employees trying to find the best ways to be productive on small budgets. The performance review can seem like an interruption when people have other priorities.

Instead, universities can embrace their learning culture with Reviewsnap and make the performance review an opportunity for development.  

Download “Customizing Performance Reviews for Higher Education: Make Performance ManagementMeaningful for Faculty and Staff” so you can see how universities can get more out of the performance review process.

In this brief, you’ll learn how to customize reviews to make the process more meaningful by:

• Changing the language
• Defining the goals 
• Asking for clarity

Download the brief and see how customizing goals and competencies can make the performance review process worthwhile.

360 Degree Reviews: Mixing Personal and Professional Feedback

If you’re lucky enough to work at a company where your co-workers are also your friends, it’s easy for the lines between personal and professional relationships to blur. Feedback often isn’t as objective as it should be — best friends might pump each other up, or if there is a critique, it can be more about feelings than performance.

A 360 degree review provides the opportunity to get multiple perspectives, but it’s important to put some processes in place so feedback doesn’t get personal. Follow these tips to make performance management meaningful and maintain a friendly culture:

1.     Make the review about balance: Especially if you’ve never had much of a performance management culture, reviews can be scary. People might want to hide areas for improvement and inflate areas of strength. When you kick off the 360 degree review process, discuss how balance is important. Have a discussion around what a high-rating behavior looks like, as well as middle- and low-rating behaviors. Give people examples to work with so they know how to be objective and provide balance when they’re filling out the survey.

2.     Maintain anonymity: It’s important to make it easy for raters to maintain anonymity. If an employee is going to select peer raters, have at least three so it doesn’t become obvious who left what feedback. The employee will get more-rounded feedback and he won’t feel like he has to confront a rater if there is a negative comment.

3.     Keep the feedback meeting objective: The meetings in which managers and employees discuss a feedback report can be filled with anxiety and stress. Acknowledge that there are going to be some personal feelings mixed into the feedback, as well as the employee’s reaction. Then focus on talking about behaviors. Understanding that there’s a personal element means the meeting won’t be cold and detached, but talking about behaviors (which can be changed) will keep things on track. And when there are good things to discuss, talk about how those good behaviors might be used in other situations.

Personal feelings can make the feedback process stressful for people, or make it hard to get at what behaviors really need to be changed. By striking a balance, maintaining anonymity, and keeping things objective, employees can get the feedback they need and the organization can get the change it’s working toward.

Even Small Businesses Need Compensation Management

During the early days of a startup, making payroll might seem touch-and-go. You might be able to close deals, but money goes straight back into the business — whether that’s to fund more development or just keep the lights on. Employees in a fresh startup environment know that checks might not come regularly, and amounts might vary. But the sacrifice can be worth it to work on something so new and exciting.

As your company starts to see some stability, though, it’s time to come up with compensation plans for your current and anticipated employees, even if your company is the smallest of the small.

Compensation management for small businesses is just as important as it is for large enterprises. In fact, it can be even more important because things are pretty transparent for small businesses. Here are five things to keep in mind as you develop your small business compensation plan:

·       Check the market rates: People are willing to work for less when it’s something they believe in, and in the early days, that flexibility could help you keep the business going. As you stabilize, employees and prospects will be checking how your plans rate against salaries on Payscale.com or Salary.com. Knowing these rates will be critical when you also need to recruit talent as you grow.

·       Be clear about the whole package: Salary is just one component of compensation, so if you offer additional benefits such as full healthcare coverage or flexible PTO, communicate how that rounds out an employee’s total compensation package.

·       Add non-financial rewards when you can: Especially when money is tight, look into creative ways to reward employees. Small businesses require employees to wear a lot of hats, and the early phases may mean employees work around the clock. Can you give an employee a title boost? How about the ability to work from home?

·       Project what rewards will look like in the future: You don’t have to take standard approach to raises and bonuses, but figure out what you are going to do (so you can budget for it). High performers might deserve a significant boost, but you might also want to give everyone a reward if the business overall is doing well. Identify the options you’ll want managers to have when it is time to reward performance and make sure they’re in line with the values you want to communicate to employees.

·       Answer questions when they come up: You’re not going to be able to predict what will happen in three years — things change really quickly — but answer questions about your plans when they do come up. Be honest and clear. Employees will appreciate open communication and trust the decisions your leadership team is making.

Small businesses can make a big difference in the market, so rewarding employees is important to that success. Develop a comprehensive compensation management plan, and then you can focus on other strategic elements of your business.

Client Story: Maternal and Child Health Consortium

Reviewsnap is excited to share its newest case study with the Maternal and Child Health Consortium of Chester County (MCHC). As MCHC worked to build a sustainable future for the organization, it was clear that strong performance management was going to be necessary for the success of the organization.  

MCHC, founded in 1991, is a nonprofit organization in suburban Philadelphia with a mission to improve maternal and child health through the collaborative efforts of individuals, healthcare providers, and policymakers. MCHC’s programs include ensuring that pregnant women deliver healthy children and secure well-baby care, as well as supporting families as they prepare their children to enter school. The organization serves an incredibly diverse population of women and families in the Chester County community, so the consortium needs to support a diverse workforce.

In pursuit of continuous quality improvement, leadership development, and alignment of its mission and core values, MCHC selected Reviewsnap’s performance management offerings to infuse greater accountability into the organization’s culture.

Download the case study to learn how MCHC developed a pilot program to launch its performance management system, how Reviewsnap helped the consortium develop custom content to fit its unique culture, and the results MCHC has seen with the program.

Identify and Uplift Disengaged High Performers

Employees are always asked to do more, and while there’s the very real employee population that’s only productive 60 percent of the time, many more are productive and performing well. They might

also be burned out.

Believe it or not, some employees want to do a good job, even if the workplace is beating them down. Maybe they’re going through a rough patch, or maybe they’re having issues with a colleague. These people usually see a light at the end of the tunnel, so they keep working hard.

The last thing you want to happen is for your high performers to get burned out and decide they’ve had enough. If that happens, you’re out a great employee, and that worker potentially parts ways with you on bad terms. Situations like this can be avoided if you identify and uplift your disengaged high performers.

First, discover the high performers. You should already have a performance management system in place that helps you manage how well your employees are doing. Check out who’s considered a high performer and identify who’s on your team and who else you might interact with.

Next, see who’s becoming disengaged. On your own team, that might be really easy to see. You should also take a look around and see if high performers from other departments that you interact with are having a rough time. You’ll want to see if you can determine the factors that are contributing to that disengagement, too. Some will be within your control, and some won’t.

Finally, uplift the high performers. When you can make a change for your team, make it. If there’s a temporary challenge making life rough for everyone, be sure to express that you know things are difficult. Keep assuring people there’s a light at the end — and deliver on that. For people on other teams, check with them personally, if you can. You might also have to say something to their manager. It could be there’s a problem no one was aware of or something that a simple realignment of priorities could fix. Don’t step on toes, but you can always look out for your colleagues, whether they’re on your team or not.

Check out our white paper “Giving High Performers a Runway.” You’ll find more tips on how you can help high performers succeed and help your company accomplish its goals, too.

Internal Expertise Is an Untapped Learning Resource

While learning programs are going more digital, don’t forget that your company has many internal experts who have knowledge to share. Those specialists have expertise in areas that affect different parts of the business.

For example, the logistics manager will have insight into how the supply chain affects whether products are delivered on time. When marketing needs to set product launch dates, it’s critical to partner with the logistics manager.

What if marketing could get a download from the logistics manager before ever scheduling a meeting?

Your company can create learning content developed by your own internal experts. Here are some things you can do:

·       Have departments record introductory videos about responsibilities and contacts

·       Launch a wiki for the product development team to give everyone the ability to learn the ins and outs of your new offering

·       Set up Google+ Hangout events with your executive team and let employees ask about new initiatives or strategic direction — or allow people to collaborate remotely on projects

·       Record radio and webinar broadcasts that feature your employees and share them on the internal network

·       Invite teams to host “Lunch and Learn” events to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in other departments

·       Let authors of internal process manuals deliver a recorded presentation of rules, processes, or best practices to follow so new employees have access to onboarding resources

As you can see, there are many ways you can transform your learning programs from being generic to being customized. As you log all these materials, you’ll create a learning library that makes it easy for employees to get answers faster. Your teams will stay productive, and your experts can share their insight across the company.

Course Correct Early with 360 Degree Reviews

It’s exciting when you get to bring new people on at your company. They’re fresh faces with lots of energy. However, their hire date could put them out of rotation with the performance review cycle. The first round might be too soon for the information to be meaningful, but the second round could be a year and a half later. Don’t let that much time go by before you’ve had a chance to talk about performance.

Using 360 degree feedback tools can help you have performance conversations with employees when they’re off-cycle with performance reviews. You’ll get them feedback earlier, as well as make any course corrections before formal review season. Here’s how to integrate 360 degree tools into your off-season performance review program:

·       Select a standard 360 review cycle: You might not use 360s for every employee, but if you set a standard cycle time, new employees will get feedback sooner rather than later. For example, all new employees can complete a 360 degree review after six months.

·       Take away the pressure: Using 360s for developmental purposes can relieve the pressure of this being a performance-related event. Set expectations early that this is a progress check and an opportunity for improvement, not a tool to be used for punishment.

·       Help the employee select the raters: By six months, most employees are comfortable with peers and co-workers. When they go over their rater selection with you, make sure they’ve selected an “A” team.

·       Review feedback and get employee input: Many employees have ideas around how they’d like to improve, so ask for that input before prescribing next steps. If there’s a behavior that needs course correction, discuss it in a constructive manner. Find ways to address the behavior, but also make sure that there are not outside factors influencing the behavior. If you have influence on those factors, assure the employee that you’re doing what you can to address those.

For many people, a 360 degree review offers the chance to get a better idea of their performance than meetings or daily interactions might provide. Employees often want to improve before it’s too late, but they just might not know what’s wrong. Make sure you help employees prepare for formal reviews by giving them an interim step. And don’t forget to celebrate great performance, too. You could find a rising star ready for new responsibilities sooner than if you had waited until the formal review.