One day one of my team members huffed and puffed : “But Sandrine, this is boring !”. One employee had complained and said she was being discriminated against. She claimed she had been left behind during a job grading change (promotion) that had been implemented 4 or 5 years before for a specific category of…
Do we need job descriptions ?
June 19, 2012 by 5 Comments
I am often asked : “Do we need job descriptions ?” A lot of managers ask for them. Of course, these managers very rarely think of doing it themselves and writing down the description, maybe even with the input of the employees who hold those roles ! Why do these managers expect HR to write…
Case study – refusing to increase base pay further
June 17, 2012 by 8 Comments
I have created, over the years, a “swipe file” of C&B situations I have faced and how I reacted to them. The idea is that I keep a copy of the more seminal communication pieces I have written, mostly one-to-one, not the “all employees” emails that we all have to spend from time to time.…
Comparing salary ranges? Really?
June 14, 2012 by 2 Comments
I was recently approached by a well-meaning Organisation Development specialist working for a governmental organisation. This gentleman emailed me the following : “I have been requested to benchmark our salary grades with other (semi-)government entities. Therefore we are approaching some organizations to see what they can share with us. We are mainly interested in the…
Are you constrained to say bonus is discretionary?
June 7, 2012 by 1 Comment
One of my recent posts covered the pros and cons of keeping compensation information confidential. There are positives to each side of the coin, but my view is that we should communicate as much as possible when it comes to Compensation and Benefits rules, entitlements and required contributions. There are too many drawbacks to not…
4 considerations when creating a job title structure
June 5, 2012 by 5 Comments
In today’s Reader Question, I will explore the topic of how to create a job title family for your organisation. One of my friends recently had to open a whole new area for the company she works at. For the sake of the post, let’s say her company operates in retail and construction, and it…
Compensation trends for 2012 – and how we communicate them
June 3, 2012 by 1 Comment
Although we are now officially in June and getting close to the mid-year mark, I thought I would share this infographic from Payscale. It illustrates compensation trends for 2012. I like it for 2 reasons : obviously because the topic is of relevance for this blog 🙂 because it is an infographic, it is a…
