3 reasons why C&B needs project management skills

3 reasons why C&B needs project management skills

You need Project Management skills if you want to achieve success in Compensation & Benefits.

1 – Compensation professionals are always managing projects

Some parts of HR have projects to manage on a regular basis, such as in Learning & Development for example. I believe however that C&B is the area of HR with the most projects to bring to fruition :

There are recurring activities, such as participating to surveys, preparing salary increases and promotions, or performance management-related actions. These need to be planned and improved year on year and mistakes are not an option.

There are also one-off plans such as revising your sales incentive plan, creating a retention scheme, performing due diligence for a merger or acquisition, or entering in a new country for example. These need to be managed within strict deadlines and cost assumptions.

Therefore we are often in project management mode.

2 – Compensation projects generate a lot of interest in the organisation

In Compensation & Benefits particularly, many of our activities have high, visible and personal impact on many if not all employees at once. Who would not notice how their pay has increased (or not), how their incentive is calculated, how well their medical plan covers them and their family ? Who doesn’t wonder if there will be a bonus paid this year ? Who doesn’t care about their grade and job title ?

And the consequences are often affecting people for a long time, and impacting their loved ones as well.

So many people pay a lot of attention, if not to the project during the design and implementation phase, at least as of the roll-out to the organisation.

In these highly visible and lasting circumstances, anything that derails from the plan gets noticed, and a rigorous approach to managing the project will help ensure there is control over the results.

3 – Compensation projects succeed through the coordination of many stakeholders

Because of the high visibility, depth of reach and complexity of many compensation projects, we often have involvement of numerous stakeholders.

Finance often needs to be involved, especially for the costing part. Often the changes will roll over for a number of years, for example benefits decisions or salary increase budgets. So the support of Finance is needed to ensure there is on-going funding and that the company will be able to afford the changes.

IT obviously also plays an important role. Without systems, timely and accurate access to the necessary information and data may be endangered. Without systems, most of the C&B activities are not scalable. Without systems and automation where possible, the risk of making crucial errors increases significantly. IT will in most cases need to be involved in the project.

Legal and Communications  help make sure that the plan will be applicable and in managing risk, including risk to the reputation of the organisation. Prevention and control. Communications also help to ensure that the right information reaches its target audience and is understood by all parties.

Representatives of management and employees (including trade unions where applicable) also need to be involved to ensure buy-in, run pilots if needed, and generally speaking, aligning the plan to the needs of the business and the employees.

These are the most obvious stakeholders who will be involved in a number of the larger compensation projects.

Good project management skills will help you determine if, when and how to bring these constituents in your project. The skills will also give you the background required to influence them in order to complete your plan in the most appropriate manner possible.

Given these considerations, knowing how to manage projects becomes an essential part of the skillset of compensation managers. Of course there is no need for a fancy certification. However, the planning, organising, communication, risk control, tracking, reporting aspects of good project management are essential in helping you deliver the best possible projects.

Any HR professional involved in managing C&B project should at least read one or two books (there are even one or two that are geared to HR) in order to learn some of the tools and processes that will support successful implementation of the plan.

 

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