The document discusses communicating compensation to executives and managers. It advocates for pay transparency and discusses its benefits, such as increased trust, engagement, and business outcomes. It also addresses how to have compensation conversations with executives by understanding their priorities, aligning pay with business goals, and keeping them informed. When communicating with managers, the document recommends equipping them to have difficult pay discussions, considering alternative forms of compensation, and preparing them with tools and talking points.
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Rusty Lindquist
V P T H O U G H T L E A D E R S H I P
A T B A M B O O H R
Mykkah Herner
M O D E R N C O M P E N S A T I O N
E V A N G E L I S T A T P A Y S C A L E
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Making the Compensation
Conversation a Culture Builder
Don’t be offended
Be open
Take it seriously Be objective
Be proactive
Be Positive
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
of employees are ok with
low pay if the rationale is
explained
82%
of companies are confident
in managers’ ability to have
tough pay conversations
80% of employees paid above
market believe they’re paid
at or below
17%
—PayScale Employee Survey 2015
—PayScale Employee Survey 2015
—PayScale Comp Best Practices Report 2016
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
www.payscale.com
• Understand the executive audience
• Align compensation with business objectives
• Incorporate leading edge practices
• Keep executives up to date
Exec communication tips
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Prepare Talking Points
• Compensation philosophy and
purpose
• Compensation plan changes at
the highest level
• Market study and results
• Next steps—talk with managers
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Value Exchange
Experience in industry
Experience in market vertical
Experience in adjacent markets
Experience in field of discipline
Experience in adjacent disciplines
Experience with competitors
Product knowledge
Competitor knowledge
Time and experience in company
Education
Discipline training and certification
Supply and demand
Employer Value DriversEmployee Value Drivers
Base pay
Performance Pay
Paid time off
Benefits
Travel
Culture and environment
Work flexibility
Work/Life balance
Meaningful work
Who you work with
Challenging work
Opportunity to impact
Job security
Shared purpose / mission
Career advancement opportunities
Autonomy
Senior leadership
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Negotiation Skills
• Sell the organization & the full package on the table
• Sell the benefits of the offer (initial or increase)
• Listen to the ask behind the ask
• Meet them and then move
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Consider Workplace “Currency”
Know what motivates your employees
Additional/Alternative Perks
FTE preference
Staggered increase or offer
PTO
Work assignments
Development opportunities
31
Identify Creative Solutions
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Prepare Manager Toolkits
• Compensation Plan Talking Points
• Compensation Plan Information
• Details for each employee they supervise
• Tips for each type of conversation they may have
o Pay is low or perceived to be low
o Pay is high
o No increase due to performance
o “I found this on the internet”
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Communicating Compensation to Executives and Managers
Thankyou!
BambooHR
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We will contact everyone within the next few days to set this up.
Download our free eBook: Communicating Compensation: Your guide to
tackling tough conversations about pay
PayScale
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Questions?
Rusty Lindquist
V P S T R A T E G I C H R I N S I G H T S
B A M B O O H R
@ r u s t y l i n d q u i s t
r u s t y @ b a m b o o h r . c o m
w w w . l i n k e d i n . c o m / i n / r u s t y l i n d q u i s t
Mykkah Herner
M O D E R N C O M P E V A N G E L I S T
P A Y S C A L E
@ m y k k a h _ h e r n e r
M y k k a h H @ p a y s c a l e . c o m
w w w . l i n k e d i n . c o m / i n / m y k k a h h e r n e r
BambooHR
Compensation can have a profound impact on your organization. Employees, after all, are your biggest expense, and more importantly, the key to your organizations success. And compensation affects every employee.
So let’s take a look at three critical ways compensation impacts your organization.
BambooHR
One of the primary ways compensation impacts your organization is through culture.
We know how important culture is. Culture is the heartbeat of our companies. It fosters loyalty and satisfaction, it powers performance and engagement, and results in retention. All of these lead to reduced operating costs, and increased productivity, which themselves result in greater business output.
BambooHR
So Culture, as abstract as it may be, is a powerful strategic lever within our organizations. But sometimes our abstract view of culture means we fail to recognize how our actions actually impact it.
BambooHR
So for a moment lets think of culture as a story. Think of it as the shared narrative we create together about where we work. It’s a story we tell our employees, and it’s the story employees tell each other about where they work.
Thinking about culture as a story, can help influence the way you manage it, and invest in it. Because everything you do becomes part of that story.
Sometimes you’re adding words and scripts, and sometimes you’re adding whole chapters. Sometimes what you add creates cohesion, strengthening or reinforcing that story, and sometimes what you add creates confusion, detracting from that story.
Compensation, along with discussions and attitudes around it become a strong part of that story.
BambooHR
Because compensation is quite literally, the story we tell our employees about how we perceive their value.
BambooHR
And because few things impact a person more than their perception of their own value, and their perception of how we value them, compensation can be considered the keystone of culture.
Because all the stories we create about what we value as a company become subservient to the story we tell each employee about how we value them.
BambooHR
So how do we make compensation a culture builder. Let’s start with how to have constructive conversations about compensation. Because they don't have to be awkward, and they don’t have to be negative (and yes, that’s true even when you don’t have budget for monetary adjustments).
Here are some specific things you can do to help set the stage for productive compensation discussions, and guide them to fruitful conclusions when they happen.
Be open - Listen, your company’s attitude about compensation discussions are clear to the employees. It radiates with deafening clarity.
And if employees know that they can come in, and are welcome to have open conversations about compensation, then it makes a huge difference. You’re telling them that you value them, and you care about them feeling valued. But if they know that you’re not open, if they know that you hate compensation discussions, if they’re taboo, or really uncomfortable, then they won’t happen, and people will just leave. Often we find people would rather leave, and find a new job, then approach an uncomfortable compensation discussion with their company.
Take it seriously - Sometimes simply the act of being very sincere, of having a serious discussion can make the difference between them feeling valued or not. Remember, compensation is the communication of how much we value that employee. If they feel undercompensated, they’re feeling undervalued. This is deeply emotional. If you take it seriously, your story to them is that you’re serious about their value.
Don’t be offended - Compensation is inherently highly emotional, and if you have an obvious, adverse reaction to the conversation, you can unintentionally entrench the employee in their emotion by your reaction. HR and managers in a company need to know that they can happen at any time. They need to be prepared for it. And they need to not be offended when it happens. We’ll talk more about this a little later.
Be Positive - When you get asked, if you don’t make it a positive experience, you could be telling the story that you don’t care, or hate talking about it, and that can stifle future conversations and create a culture where it’s easier to just leave, then ask for a raise. Make it a positive experience. Even if you think the employee will end up just leaving, or isn’t worth trying to save, because remember, how you treat that conversation will be a story that gets shared, and will become part of a cultural narrative that you have to operate within.
Be objective - Diving in and deconstructing the misalignment by focusing on actual value, and the employees value drivers can help strip the emotion away from the conversation, and focus it on a more constructive end. Your objectivity and openness about the conversation can tell a strong internal story that the company cares about it’s employees, and is fair in talking about comp. In just a few minutes we’ll unwrap this part a lot more.
Be proactive - Don’t wait for compensation to be brought up. Having designated periods (such as an annual review) can help an employee feel like you care about being competitive with comp, and making sure the employee is fairly comped for their value. It can also cause employees feeling out of alignment to be at ease, knowing their comp review time is coming. Simply having it scheduled can help them feel more objective about the discussion.