Share the knowledge – November 2012

Like every month, here are some of the best or most relevant Compensation & Benefits, performance management, HR and/or global mobility articles that I came across recently :

  • You’ve GOT to read this very interesting post about whether to punish failure or lack of failure. Michael Haberman from Omega HR Solutions is inspired by the seismologists in Italy who were sentenced to prison for failing to alert on the risk ofearthquake before the Aquila seism, and the comments are ALL written by some of the best HR bloggers and specialists in the reward sphere. Don’t miss it out and think about what *your* culture emphasizes !
  • How to create a great HR data story. By now, you all know that one of my et peeves is how HR and C&B communicate in order to get buy-in and be credible. Cathy Missildine writes in HR Examiner and shares 5 steps to help you get the support you need for your project, based on your data. Pragmatic and easy to put to use instantly !
  • Something we all know and agree with in HR : people own people development, not HR. The argument is well written and the travel analogy is a good one that you can re-use next time you deploy a new people process, or when you hear some managers complain about the “lack of HR results for my people development”
  • This TLNT article gives some indication on how much should employees have saved for their retirement so far. Despite the fact the article is focused on the US market, I like the rough estimate based on the current age of the person, as well as the two links to the calculators, especially the second one – and both of them work in whichever currency.
  • Although the article is focused on benefits offered in the Silicon Valley, you can use its approach (from a communication standpoint) when you want to introduce new health and/or wellness benefits.
  • An interesting article on whether incentives should be done in cash or not. Don’t miss the comments at the bottom, they add a lot to the debate.
  • An article describing why revenue per employee is better than profit per employee as an HR metric. The comment makes a good argument for using another, related metric : the ratio of labour cost per revenue, expressed as a percentage (labour cost for each $ dollar of revenue generated).
  • Choosing the right incentives for your corporate culture
  • An overview of some trends in recognition programs in different parts of the world, as well as some best practices for plan design
  • Should pay-for-performance compensation be replaced ? (Harvard Business School)


For those of you who are interested in GCC and MENA articles, here are some regional pieces :

  • UAE and GCC retirement and residency. This BBC 4-minute video describes the situation of long-standing expats in the GCC, who currently can’t stay in the country past the age of 65. The video ends by mentioning that Qatar has announced the creation of a permanent residence visa in view of the 2022 World Cup – if this happens, I wonder if some of the other GCC countries will follow suit…
  • Hay 2012 Oman survey results : plans for 5% salary growth, after 5.7% in 2012.
  • Saudi starts to impose fines on private sector companies that employ more expats than Nationals – at 2,400 Riyals per year for each excess foreigner. The Kingdom needs to create 3 million jobs for Saudis by 2015, and 6 millions by 2030.
  • In Jordan, a regional company organised its second internal Compensation & Benefits forum, sharing knowledge and aligning work standards. Is your company organising its own knowledge exchange program ?

Some reading on pensions in the MENA region, with a bit of focus on Africa :

Two different surveys highlight how theMiddle East continues to draw expats, with some interesting statistics on age, expected duration of stay in the country and other factors covering the region :


Best of the rest :

  • Ah, I so love Cole Nussbaumer’s blog, Storytelling with data, that every month I include at least one of her posts into my content curation article. This one does not fail. She takes a “normal”, vertical bar chart that is useful but a bit long to read and transforms it into an actionable, worthy-of-being-presented-to-the-Board chart. Read it and learn once more how to make yourself look more credible when presenting your compensation information !
  • And here is an article about how Cole’s team, the People Analytics team at Google, uses data to inform its HR decisions. Very interesting !


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