Everyone deserves to be thanked at least occasionally. Even the Compensation folks. Especially the Compensation folks.
Now is a good time to take a moment to thank your compensation coordinators, analysts, specialists, managers, directors, and anyone else you know who has compensation in their job title or does compensation work. I am completely biased, but they are heroes. Chances are, they’ve been working the last several weekends getting ready to kick off compensation planning at your company again in this new year. If not now, some other time. But lots of them have been juggling the holidays with a boatload of work while the rest of us have had a bit of a breather. So here’s my letter to them, and you may borrow these words:
Dear Compensation Professional,
I did your job for a few years, branched out into other things, then delved into compensation systems work. So while I’m not a true practitioner at the moment, I get to work with you and see what you do. Much of it is remarkable and too often under-appreciated, but I see it and here’s what I see:
You make rewards tangible and understood.
In the end, people get paid. The path to that point isn’t that easy. You are the ones who sift through the soft but critical measures of performance, potential, corporate culture, engagement, and the more concrete measures of trending market data and budgets. You come up with a scheme that will reward employees and communicate to them that they are worth having in your organization. In 2015 and beyond, this is going to get even more challenging to do. You will rise to the challenge.
You get things right. You have to get things right.
Close is good in horseshoes and grenades. Close is not good in paychecks. Your job demands that salaries and incentive payouts and grants are accurate and you have to hit payroll deadlines when the new awards come through. Nobody appreciates a paycheck that’s close (but wrong) and late. So there’s no wiggle room in your job and you work to ensure that your comp process delivers accurately and on time. Always. You also do this within significant budget constraints. Thank you.
You blend science and art.
From my perspective, there are about as many ways to design and deliver compensation programs as there are organizations. Somehow, you figure out a way to do this for your organization that blends results from hard analytical work with a recognition that we work in human systems and organizations. You provide guidelines and structure and leave room for managers to make decisions within that framework. You transform some pretty squishy concepts into something that makes sense to the bean counters (in all of us) and you temper the straight numbers with the recognition that some things are just messy.
You are visible and your work matters.
In the end, you deliver programs that reward people and help employees make the connection between what they’ve contributed with how they’re rewarded. You work with senior management, so you’re not able to fly under the radar very often. Sometimes you have to introduce unpopular ideas or at least new ideas and socialize them to gain traction. There are easier jobs out there. I appreciate the impact you make on your organization, knowing that you are doing your bit to reward people more equitably and advance the objectives of your organization in a competitive world.
Thank you, again.
Sincerely,
Peter Sass