How to Drain the Drama from Salary Reviews: A Conversation Roadmap

(Click here if this does not display properly on your screen).

• Surveys suggest employees are motivated by many things besides pay. That's true, but in the end most employees equate their self-worth with their compensation. And nothing is more likely to destroy morale, sap productivity and erode retention rates than disagreements over pay. Even worse news: It's your best people, not your average employees, who become most disillusioned if pay expectations and pay reality are out of whack. So what do you do? Pay people more? Not an option. Come up with a breakthrough compensation scheme that solves all your problems? Won't happen. Every pay scheme that looks great on paper reveals its gnarly contradictions once put into practice. If there is a magic bullet, it has nothing to do with your company-wide compensation program. It has to do with the way the company, and especially individual managers, talk to employees about pay. Fact is, most managers have never been trained to discuss compensation. They dread salary reviews because A) they fear the employee expects way more than he's going to get; B) they have no conceptual framework for discussing salary; and C) they simply don't know what to say. B21 asked one of its top-rated speakers, performance management expert Gary Markle, to arm HR executives and managers with powerful new tools for conducting even the most emotional pay discussions with employees. Participants will learn how to handle tough questions such as: I got a 10% raise last year but only 5% this year, even though I did just as well. How come? I know I'm not management material, but does that mean I'm stuck with cost-of-living salary increases forever? I'm a 25-year-old engineer and I do the exact same thing as a colleague who's 50; how come she makes more? Why did I only get 80% of my bonus instead of the whole thing? Why does that guy who reports to me make more than I do? Everybody knows what everybody else makes around here. How come I didn't get as big a raise as the guy in the cubicle next to me? Am I ever going to make as much in this job as my brother makes in his? I didn't get my bonus because there was no way I could influence results; Why did you set it up that way? This team bonus idea is unfair. I did great but all those slackers on my team caused me to lose out. Last year we did great, so this year you increased the bonus criteria dramatically. It's almost like we're being punished for doing well. We'll never hit these new goals. I'm know I'm working offsite three days a week this year, but why did you decrease my salary? I do the same amount of work.

   

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Gary Markle, CEO of the consulting firm Energage, Inc. Mr. Markle's book "Catalytic Coaching: The End of the Performance Review," has been on Amazon.com's top-5% list for over 36 consecutive months. His work has been favorably reviewed in the Atlanta Business Chronicle and he's been interviewed and quoted in The Wall Street Journal Fast Company, and Detroit Free Press. Mr. Markle is the founding chairman and current member of Vistage (formerly known as TEC or The Executive Committee), a CEO think tank. He is also the 2005 TEC Canada Speaker of the Year.

Glenn Shepard Seminars, Inc.

113 Space Park South

Nashville, TN  37211

Ph (615) 366-7217

Fax  (615)  366-7299

(Click here if this does not display properly on your screen).