仿宋Culture and Compensation
In the not-too-distant past, information about pay scales and salaries was kept close to the vest. Employers didn’t share much information, and employees weren’t talking. For all intents and purposes, in most environments, compensation was a secret enterprise.
Things are different these days. Companies struggle with pay communication at both the macro levels and micro levels: namely, how dose the overall system work? And how dose it affect individual employees? At the same time, generation X-ers are inclined to talk much more openly about starting salaries and pay adjustments. With more openness in the workplace, inconsistencies in the way a company’s pay system is communicated and applied will be glaringly obvious. AS an anonymous person once observed, ”Pay is not the most important thing that makes organizations attractive places to work. However, it’s much more important than whatever comes third or fourth.”
Companies need to do a better job. All too often they neglect the critical tasks of communicating and consistently applying their compensation programs. They spend a great deal of time and money designing sophisticated and sometimes elaborate compensation programs to accomplish strategic business objectives. Then, they leave it to an insert in the employee handbook or, worse yet, to an ill-advised supervisor, perhaps with a video, to explain the new pay structure. But a compensation plan, no matter how brilliantly designed, will not accomplish its objectives without a communication strategy that is just as brilliantly designed as the plan itself.
A strategy for communicating a compensation plan must accomplish three critical tasks:
Demonstrating the link between the compensation plan and the company’s overall business strategy
Applying the program in the day-to-day operations of the company
Communicating the plan details
Demonstrating the link between the compensation plan and the overall company strategy
In the drive to enhance their positions in the global marketplace, companies are increasingly competing on the basis of expanded market share, greater efficiency or lower cost, and their ability to attract, retain, and motivate the top talent. To fortify their talent pools, companies are hastening to design more attractive and innovative compensation packages.
