New Business Ideas 4 U

Posts Tagged ‘staff relations’

HR Sacred Cow 3     There should be a Standard Approach to Evaluating and Rewarding Jobs and Jobholders.

Let’s borrow directly from our authors on this one. On pages 53-4 in The Differentiated Workforce, under the heading of Traditional Approaches are not the Answer, they say this:

‘Conventional approaches to job design use attributes of employees and the environment within which they work (in contrast to the strategy that must be executed) as the primary criteria to determine job structure. Historically, most large firms have used complex job-evaluation systems to allocate points to jobs, rank them, then locate these jobs in the firm’s pay system on the basis of these points. For example, the Hay system for job evaluation prices jobs based on the relative value of skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions of a particular job. The typical job evaluation process allocates points to benchmark jobs, then the remaining jobs are placed in the hierarchy. This process drives a number of organizational decisions, most notably compensation … … the conventional approach looks both internally and to history for its definition of value; what we need is an approach based on future value creation and strategic job worth.’

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So what about ‘special treatment’ for “A” jobs and “A” jobholders?

Firstly, consider pay. If a job is a strategic “A” job, then it is recognized as being of critical importance for the company. It is logical that if an “A” job is unfilled, the company will suffer, therefore it is crucial that the importance of the job is reflected in the pay for it. And since it is very possible that the “A” job is not a managerial job, and then it may be that the jobholder is paid more than his/her manager. I personally can see nothing wrong with that.

There has been precedent forever. In the military for example, the platoon sergeant – now there’s an “A” job for you – probably earns more that the second lieutenant who is his/her platoon commander. When I first entered the business world, I worked for an oil company. At the company’s major international port of entry for bulk fuel, the depot superintendent was the most highly paid staff member, but the next four places in the salary stakes were held by senior unionized fuel tanker drivers. Getting a driver supervisor internally was impossible. The selected driver would lose so much pay!

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“Ah. Good afternoon, sir. I am so glad to see you again. Thanks for making the effort to come to see me. Would you like a drink of something? Tea? Coffee? Cold water? I’m really glad to see you, because we have been working on this issue for so long. It will be great to finalize it today.”

(Hand phone rings. Listens to caller for around a minute. “OK. I understand what you are saying. It seems to me there are two issues, but I really don’t have time to go through them with you right now. I have a guest. …. Oh! You have to go out for a while? OK, then I’ll be very brief because this is an important meeting” Covers the issues, taking about 4 minutes. Closes off call)

“I’m really sorry about that. One of my staff with a problem. Let’s get back to our discussion. Where were we?”

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Very early in the book Groundswell, the authors tabulate the way in which organizations may have to change to accommodate the groundswell. I give you the table below.

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