A recent conversation about management participation in a compensation review brought to mind a client project where we made a big bet on involving managers.
I was engaged to conduct a review of the company's compensation and benefits practices. Managers in one particular division had believed for some time that their reward package was not in line with either their contributions or competitive practices. Previous compensation and benefits reviews had not resulted in any changes on their behalf, which led to cynicism and distrust of the review process. Since I had been involved in one of these previous reviews, my return was not greeted with much enthusiasm by them. The group's conviction that they were underpaid and that their situation was not being fairly considered was creating a tremendous amount of negative energy in the organization.
In an attempt to deal with this challenge head-on, the Human Resource leader, senior management and I agreed on a review approach which would involve representatives of this group throughout the process. Early in the review, in a group session as well as individual interviews, these managers had a chance to air their grievances and ask questions about the process steps and approach. Representatives from the group worked with me to design a custom survey of compensation and benefits, aimed at catching the labor market competitors they felt were most relevant. In this step, subject (of course) to the approval of their leadership, they helped write the survey job descriptions, suggested a group of peer companies to solicit for participation and offered ideas for the survey questions to be included.
I met with them several times during the couple of months it took to complete the review, to provide updates on the status of the work and address any new questions or concerns.
This process of high participation and transparency was tough, challenging and often frustrating work -- for me, for Human Resources, for this group of managers, and for their leaders. It extended the timeframe and increased the costs of the review.
As the review drew to a conclusion, our findings showed that the managers were justified in some of their concerns and wants, and not in others. In short, they did not get everything on their "list". After sharing the results in a meeting with all local staff, I rejoined the managers and supervisors yesterday to talk through the findings, recommendations and final decisions in more detail, and to allow them a final opportunity for questions. I spent more than two hours in this discussion.
The upshot? The group of managers have accepted the results (which is no small accomplishment), and have even expressed their appreciation for the more involved and transparent review process which helped them feel confident in the thoroughness and accuracy of the findings.
The lesson it reinforced for me is this: that the cost of their acceptance was not giving them everything they wanted, but creating a review process that enabled them (as much as possible) to be involved in as direct participants.
Creative Commons image Business Team In Office courtesy of Splash Universe Water Park
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