Any recommendations on how to provide development to our people managers so that they can better understand our compensation decisions and align with our organization's philosophy? Previously, we had no formalized compensation philosophy, structure, or policy in place. I have already conducted sessions with the managers to provide an overview, but they appear to be more interested in the specific details of job bands and salary ranges. However, it has been decided at the executive level that we will not be sharing the full structure at this time. Therefore, I am looking for suggestions on how to help these managers (Supervisors-Directors) develop and align philosophically before we can disclose the complete information.
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Director of HR in Services (non-Government)2 months ago
L&D can be your most important partner to help managers master comp philosophies, structures and policies. In a prior organization, we identified knowledge gaps among managers relative to our compensation programs and their ability to leverage compensation as a tool attract, motivate and develop talent. We discussed the gaps with our employee communications and L&D teams, who helped us identify the need for education rather than communication. L&D partnered with comp to develop a series of interactive online training tracks to teach managers and leaders the fundamentals of (1) our compensation philosophy, (2) the purpose and details of comp programs and (3) how to use those programs to drive talent outcomes. The series included general overview courses as well as courses dedicated to specific events such as hiring new employees, making annual merit/bonus/equity decisions, and job changes. We saw improvements in managers understanding and the sophistication with which they approached compensation for their teams. Employees also reported improved understanding of their compensation, which was an important indicator to validate and measure the downstream effect of the training.Director of HR in Miscellaneous2 months ago
Thank YOU! This is great information.
COO2 months ago
My suggestions are to share the philosophy and general practices. The managers need information to address inquiries and to support the company. For example, where does compensation fall with respect to the company's Employee Value Proposition? How do other factors (benefits, time off, work environment, etc.) align?
Is base compensation designed to be lagging, leading, or aligned with talent competitors? Who are the talent competitors (industry-specific, or general skill set)? Are there variable incentives that are designed to supplement?
Finally, what does the company do to benchmark competitive pay practices? How often is this done?
Sharing this insight will help to build confidence in your practices.
Director of HR in Miscellaneous2 months ago
Thank you, Steve, this is great insight and gives me some thoughtful talking points. Much appreciated.
Sr. Director HR Rewardsa month ago
We provide comprehensive upskillings to Line Managers every year when we run the salary review. They need to have this understanding of how ranges are created, what is considered competitive, and how employees are positioned within the range before they can make educated decisions on salary adjustments. We do appreciate the struggle to get the same level of comprehension on the compensation philosophy. Despite the details we share to upskill, there remains unclarity of how to position someone within a range, and how to apply the criteria of why peers in similar roles with different experience are not positioned alike. We do not publish the ranges to all employees, as our People Managers are not yet at a stage where they can explain to employees why they aren't positioned at the end of the range. Due to Pay Transparency requirements, we will however have to move towards fully disclosing that information.
Our salary ranges are available for each employee to see and their managers can see as well.