For those of us who have spent their entire career in HR / Compensation the pathway usually starts at the bottom of the ladder, writing job descriptions and evaluating jobs.
I've grown to hate job evaluation!
Eventually you work your way up the food chain into survey analysis, market pricing, structure design, incentives and program development. You master the various formulae, charts and graphs, can make Excel dance on a dime and you could / would happily debate the various and complex techniques that befuddle all the HR generalists. If you stay at it long enough you become a master techician on the "hard" side of Compensation. You carry a calculator everywhere.
Then it happens; one day you're asked to walk through the beaded curtain into a new world, a new career in Compensation Management. You are assigned internal clients, managers who aren't interested in your formulae, charts & graphs or technical babble. They want you to solve problems, to talk with them and explain how Compensation can give them what they want.
Here is the "softer" side of Compensation, where rules become guidelines, policies become politics and the answer to most everything is "it depends".
Not everyone successfully makes it through that beaded curtain, though. Because the journey requires a mindset change as well, into a place where the old tools don't work as well and you need something called "relationship competencies" to succeed. I've seen many peoiple falter at the curtain; some never want to pass through - and others have burnt out like a comet shooting the night sky.
I'm one of the lucky ones, I suppose - making the transition and reinventing myself as a Compensation advisor / practitioner / gatekeeper and ultimately independent consultant. One who has successfully worked with management to use Compensation as the tool it should be, an aid to management as they make the business decisions that build the business.
What I'd like to do with this blog is straddle *both* sides of Compensation, to talk about the technical aspects as well as the real world of management decision-making. Let's breathe the crisp air of business realities and shake up those technical rules we've learned. Don't let them rule us.
Let's talk about how to get things done, how to talk to employees as well as managers about pay.
Let's talk about the employee impact of what is happening, and how they might / should change your thinking.
Let's talk about your day-to-day problems with Compensation in your organization, and maybe we can solve some problems.
Let's talk.