Is Pay Important? - Yes If You Get It Wrong



Learn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Is Pay Important? - Yes If You Get It Wrong article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Jane owns a chain of retail stores and good management staff are hard to find. When recruiting she has to negotiate a salary which is attractive to the candidate but fits within her budget. As these decisions are made on a case by case basis she swears each new recruit to secrecy.

What's wrong with this? Nothing if it works. However, any strategy that relies on employees not discussing salaries with each other and threats of discipline if they do, is not really viable in the long term. It also implies that something is not quite fair.

Here is a test. If a list of employees and their pay was accidentally left on the photo copier and someone put it on the notice board, would it just be embarrassing or a major problem?

Although people should be actively discouraged from talking about salaries, it is personal and confidential, individual salaries should have a rationale behind them which can be explained when necessary.

Let's leave out award covered jobs for now, although they can be included if desired, and talk about those positions where there is a degree of discretion as to how much can be paid. An effective salary system needs to meet a few criteria.

Internal relativities Jobs need to be defined and assessed according to their importance to the organization. This then establishes a 'pecking order' which is acceptable and is normally done using some form of job evaluation. This is assessing the job only - not the person in the job. External relativities This stage then establishes what the market rates are for the jobs in your organization. This again is based on the jobs not the people. Reward for performance Now we look to the people in the jobs and ensure that the salary is related to their performance. This is important when they are first recruited, although more difficult as you may not have a clear idea on their performance. It becomes much more important with their regular reviews. Ease of administration Any system that incorporates the above needs to be maintained in a consistent way without becoming an administrative burden. This means it needs to be kept simple and well documented. It also means all employees need to understand it and managers need to be able to apply it. Fair and equitable Any salary system, to be accepted and effective needs to be fair and equitable. That is, although not everyone will be happy with their level of pay (we can always spend more than we earn) they should accept that is a fair reward for what they do. If this is not the case pay will always be an issue with them and it will be difficult to get to a stage where they are totally satisfied with their job or the organization. There is a big incentive for organizations to get this right. Research, most notably that by Frederick Herzberg, tells us that pay is not usually a motivator but pay that is considered to be inadequate or unfair is certainly a demotivator. He labeled these types of factors 'hygiene factors' - they had to be in place before people could be motivated. More recent studies into employee satisfaction tend to confirm these findings.

Time invested in establishing and managing a salary system provides significant benefits to a business as it frees up managers and their staff to focus on activities that deliver results.

Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81



More Articles:


1. Data Delivers Credibility By Robert F. Abbott
Over the past couple of days I've been setting up visitor counters, so people in another organization can accurately count the number of people who visit their event.They got the idea (and the counters) from an association I belong to, and they, too, are learning how data delivers credibility.I'm always impressed by how much respect I get when speaking or writing with specific, solid numbers. For example, when I talk about the number of visitors who came through the gates of my association's e…

2. 11 Strategies on How to Work in An Open Plan Environment By Neen James
Many work environments now are open plan, with only a few senior managers having offices of their own. This style of work can have great benefits for team building – fostering cooperation and collaboration and can be wonderful for developing the social aspects of teams, but on the flipside, it can drive some people crazy and be damaging to productivity. Most open plan offices require large numbers of people to learn to work together in very close proximity, which can present challenges, partic…

3. Plan for Business Success - 6 Reasons to Succession Plan By Martin Haworth
Succession Planning provides many valuable assets to your business. Yet it is easy to do, with a game plan. Here are some reasons why the business leader will find it a useful issue to put some focus on.Personal DevelopmentA manager starts to learn new skills. Far from the chaotic living from day to day, this is a new level, where the challenges really are evolutionary, for their employees and themselves. A chance to take the time to develop a strategic sense for the business or organisation. …

4. Succession Planning for Your Business - 7 Key Benefits By Martin Haworth
A core activity in many successful businesses, Succession Planning is simple and quick to implement - here are seven reasons why you will find it of great value in your business or organisation. But, you need to lead - it works only as well as the support it gets!TimeSuccession Planning creates capable people. Capable of taking the weight from management, to ensure they don’t have to do it all. This is hugely relieving for a manager and means that they can focus on bigger picture issues. Time …