During challenging times are you being pressured on compensation issues?

Three strategies to address the salary expectation issue.

• All news is good news. Regularly ask employees if they're OK, and don't be afraid of negative responses. Maintain a steady schedule of off-site meetings with your employees. Over lunch or coffee, pump them for information. You will likely find that employees who are well paid, will give you a heads-up when another employee is unhappy.  When confronting a malcontent, saying little is the best policy. Getting employees to become ‘real honest’ is a challenge. It's very important that you listen to them without getting defensive.
• Use numbers to defend salary levels. Base all salaries on a tangible measurement of some kind. Salary must be tied to performance expectations.  With the exception of cost-of-living adjustments,  do not bump up a person's salary unless they commit to higher expectations.  Recently there was a case where someone felt underpaid next to their peer, but the sales expectations were less for the unhappy person. Faced with an offer to adjust their salary based on higher performance expectations, the person declined the offer and stayed at the same compensation rate.

• Open the books. If employees understand, in general terms, the company’s financials, they're likely to have both a greater stake in the company and a better understanding of how quickly they can reasonably expect salaries to rise. The best way to explain a new bonus structure is to show how the company's overhead works. The more the employees know about how a business works, the less they think that it is a cash cow. For example, a profit-sharing plan might be less lucrative year after year, if overhead and benefits increase.

       Working with you.            

              Chris Wilkinson

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.  

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net