Yesterday, Wednesday July 7, 2010 Influence Insider on blogtalkradio made its long-awaited comeback after a two-month hiatus. And I for one – even though the host – thought the conversation was worth the wait.
The long intro on the show is here – but for those that didn’t see that post we had as guests a smattering of representatives from the great multi-contributor blog “Compensation Café.” The goal of the call was to ferret out the similarities and differences between consultants in the compensation arena and those of us in the “non-cash” incentive and reward/recognition space.
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On the right is the player for listening to the show. It runs for just over an hour. The voices you hear are those of:
- Ann Bares - @annbares
- Derek Irvine - @globoforce
- Laura Schroeder - @workgal
- Jim Brennan - @Jim_Brennan
- Dan Walter - @performensation
If you haven’t read the blog or follow any of these folks on twitter now would be a good time to do that.
What I learned on the Call - Two Hemispheres of Employee Engagement
I have a daughter who is left handed. I have a son who is right handed. My daughter is an artist – painting, drawing, photography – you name it, she’s into it. My son is the athlete in the family (I tell him he gets it from me but he’s old enough to know that is a load) – he’s spatially aware, good at math, loves science, can track a curve ball into the plate and hit it. In other words my two kids represent both hemispheres of the brain almost to the point of cliché (remember – right-handed = left brain, left-handed = right brain.)
And that is what my net learning was after the show yesterday.
Compensation consultants focus on the transactional side (left brain) of the employee relationship. The dollars. As Ann mentioned in the one part of the show – compensation consultants are known as spreadsheet jockeys. Their role, in many cases, is to find data, compare the data, run what-ifs on the data and ultimately find a place where the company is “competitive” in the market without going out of business.
Incentive and reward companies are more concerned with the “social” side of the employee relationship. Those of us who counsel and recommend reward programs that don’t use cash (or other forms of “compensation”) are really worried about building the relationship with the employee “above” the compensation line.
In other words – compensation consultants are right-handed. Incentive consultants are left-handed.
The Problem Is…
In this era of “total rewards” and “employee engagement” we’re juggling with only one hand.
Too often clients want an answer to their engagement programs but only want to apply right-handed thinking. And many incentive companies look at all employee issues from their left-hand point of view.
I asked on the call if compensation consultants every said – “wait a minute – your problem isn’t compensation-based – it’s reward and recognition-based, let me get another expert in here.” Most said yes. I commented that in 25 years I’ve never once had a compensation consultant call and say they needed help in the “left-handed” world of rewards. And I also know for a fact – I’ve never called a compensation consultant to talk to my clients when the problem was clearly a lack of alignment between compensation and other reward activities.
We’re doing our clients a disservice by either not recognizing the difference – or by ignoring it because it isn’t in our wheel-house or we can’t make money on it.
Time for Whole-Brain Approach
What I netted from the discussion is that we need to serve our clients better by taking a more “whole-brain” approach to engagement. Compensation isn’t the answer. Non-compensation rewards aren’t the answer.
Deftly applied combination of those two things is what really impacts the employee.
If you are a client – don’t juggle with one hand. If your compensation consultant doesn’t bring in the non-cash experts ask them to. If you’re talking with an incentive company – make sure you find a compensation consultant to balance the equation.
Other Things to Listen For On the Show…
- Herzberg was brought up – compensation is a hygiene factor (a post from Compensation Force the other day addresses this as well.) Bad compensation practices need to be fixed before non-cash awards have the appropriate impact.
- Dogma VS Philosophy - Dan Walter brought up the fact that companies many times look to implement their “dogma” versus design to a “philosophy.” This is a big point – and one, as consultants, we need to dig into and make sure clients aren’t implementing rules versus designing toward an overall philosophy.
- Communication and Measurement - too often we default to existing measurement systems (ie: payroll) and lack focus on communicating the real value of the total rewards investment.
- Technology may have driven the separation in the past - but now it is allowing for convergence.
Take a listen… hit me in the comments with your impression of the show and the interaction between compensation and rewards.
A
Marketing and Incentive Design Consultancy