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June 12, 2013

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Banking pay, CIPD, HR, Pay Regulation, Reward, Risk

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Rebuilding trust in the City of London

 

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Introduction

I was at a recent meeting in the City of London to launch the document “Focus on rebuilding trust in the City” a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) survey of staff in financial services in the City of London on trust and their employment relationship.  (I tweeted from the meeting #rebuildtrust )  The keynote speakers to an invited audience of senior City HR people and journalists were:

 

It was an informative meeting presenting both the survey results and material on initiatives taking place to build trust after the calamities, errors, poor judgement and near criminal activity in the City over the last few years, which has badly eroded trust in what was once a gold standard for honesty and integrity.

Both Peter Cheese and Andrea Eccles gave particularly good presentations from different ends of the initiative spectrum.  Peter spoke on the big picture and in particular the role that HR has to play in leading the changes.  Andrea spoke of the very important key initiatives at grass roots level that City HR are taking, working with the Lord Mayor’s City Values forum.

The key themes during the meeting were:

Each of these themes is explored below.

Culture

Culture has been identified by the CIPD in earlier work as being fundamental to the required changes in the City.  The survey indicated clearly that the existing culture is a long way from being what is needed.  45% of the participants said their employer put profit before values.  Only 47% of staff saw customers as their key stakeholder.  As one of the speakers said, “What is required is a return to the core values of caring for customers and caring for employees”. 

One interesting take on the subject was the suggestion that financial services organisations need to focus more on recruiting “ethical” people.  My own experience, backed up by the survey results, is that a lot of people join financial services to make money.  In order to be seen as successful and to make the big bucks you need to be aggressive and egotistical; otherwise how would you make deals worth millions of pounds?  Unfortunately, aggression and egotism are not good indicators of ethical behaviour.  This goes to the heart of the matter; it is very difficult to make lots of money in an ethical and customer focused way.  The demands on one hand, by shareholders and analyst to make shed loads of money on one hand, and on the other, regulators, politicians (especially the European Union) and media on the other trying to stop profitable activity.

The role of HR in leading the changes was highlighted several times.  Again the paradox between this approach and the role of HR in supporting the business to carry out its activities was evident.  A good example was a comment about the morality of HR being involved in compromise agreements in financial services.  It was alleged that these compromise agreements can (as in the case of the NHS) be used to gag whistle blowers.  The reality is that compromise agreements are an essential part of the HR toolkit.  It allows for the amicable separation between employer and employee, normally on a “no fault” basis.  In the fast paced and rapidly changing environment like financial services, there will be differences of opinion, strategy and personality clashes.  Compromise agreements lead to a civilised and low cost way of managing these situations.  The suggestion that HR should stop using them is really throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  HR has far more important tasks in providing the frameworks for culture change than worrying about compromise agreements.  It is getting tied up in the detail rather than working on the big strategic picture that often leads to HR being perceived as a barrier rather than an enabler.

There was some good news.  RBS, the largely state owned bank in the UK, was singled out for praise for its work in introducing a much more ethical and customer centred approach – something of which I have some personal experience. (And would like to have more if Rory Tapner is reading this).  Sadly examples of good practice are few and far between. 

Values

Part of the discussion on culture must include values.  City HR is leading a lot of work on the development of toolkits to help.  The presentation by Simon Thompson went in to detail on the work of the Institute of Bankers on professional standards and many big employers in the City have signed up to these standards and the educational and training frameworks that support these approaches. 

Professionalism

This was a key theme in the presentations.  Raising the level of professionalism is very important in defeating the current broken culture.  What do I mean by broken culture?  It is the behaviours that allowed the manipulation of LIBOR rates for profit; that mis-sold products including PPI and, perhaps, some derivative products for gain rather than the good of the customer.

The survey showed that only 30% of staff are in professional bodies with standards.

To work in HR in the City you need to be CIPD qualified, yet to work as a banker you need no qualifications at all

That quote summed up for me the entire issue around professionalism.  One can argue about professionalism and its meaning.  It does normally provide a framework of acceptable (and unacceptable) behaviour that can form the basis of reward on one hand and disciplinary action on the other.

There was a comment that there are a vast number of codes of practice, regulations, laws, (domestic and foreign) and guidance – some of which is in direct contradiction.  True, but no one said it was going to be easy.

I must again praise the work of City HR in providing structure and good practice for professionals in the City.  This slow drip drip drip of information, tools and frameworks are, over the long term, likely to prove to be a bigger boost to professionalism than grand culture change initiatives by those embedded in the current City ideology. 

Leadership

One of the more disappointing results from the survey was that 41% of the participants said that there was one rule for senior management and another of other staff.   Given that nearly all the speakers emphasized the key role of senior management and CEO’s in leading the culture change; there is still a big mountain to be climbed.  The fact that only 36% of “other ranks” are aware of their organisations values indicate that organisational leadership has a large communications issue on their hands; and what is leadership if it is not communication of the vision.

Risk Management

A key theme during the presentation and during the Q&A session that followed was risk management.  It is clear that the framework to support culture changes needs good human capital measures and strong analytics.  Why?  Two major reasons were discussed.  First, it is difficult to discuss change if it cannot be properly measured.  Second, in the world of financial services number crunching and risk analysis are part of the bread and butter of daily activity.  To have credibility, the change activity, particularly if led by HR, needs to adopt this approach.  When I worked in investment banking I sat on the Operational Risk committee and that experience led directly to my design and implementation of a reward risk framework.     Exactly the same type of approach can be used when thinking about risk and culture in the financial services environment.  It is this sort of fundamental change in thinking that is going to provide the scaffold for the success of the work in culture change.  HR does, on occasion, shy away from people metrics; yet they are an essential framework for designing interventions and supporting our businesses. 

Role of HR

There was a lot of discussion on the role of HR.  Here I must depart from the gospel according to the panel speakers.  There are two places the pressure for change will come; the first is from senior management.  There is a bit of an issue with this one.  Senior management got where they are by supporting and encouraging the status quo.  Much of this has been made in management literature; the ideology of management has support for the status quo deeply imbedded within it.  Asking senior management to support massive cultural change may be like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas….  The second place is from the employees within the organisation.    It is possible, as history has shown, for small but articulate groups of people to push for change from within the organisation.  Given the above mentioned ideology that is a possibility but not a strong probability. 

If culture change becomes another HR intervention it has the possibility to be marginalised and not become part of mainstream business thinking.  The survey showed that a number of culture change initiatives have not worked so far.  Only 17% of participants saw the culture change in their organisation as being very effective.

Clearly HR does have a role in providing the toolkits, interventions, training and development necessary to carry out the culture change; but leading it is not, in my view, going to happen and if it does it is more likely to lead to a marginalisation of the change on the business agenda as so often happens with HR led initiatives.

HR does have a key role in modelling and supporting behavioural change as well as ensuring that the new generation of bankers coming through at least start with an ethical mind-set. 

Reward issues

Reward is at the heart both of what is “bad” in the City and what will help drive change.  But,

  • 73% of staff think that some people in financial services are overpaid
  • 67% say there is secrecy around pay for senior mangers
  • Only 36% see reward as being “fair”.

As reward professionals we have to stand up and be counted.  Discussion needs to take place on what is “fair” pay.  Pay systems have to be somewhat more open so there is a greater understanding of what people are being paid for,

Key tasks include:

  • Better advocacy of pay levels and differentials in organisations
  • Development of incentives to encourage professionalism
  • Development of reward and performance management that encourage thinking about how an objective is reached as well as the measure of the objective.
  • Being as open as is appropriate to stakeholders on our reward approaches and outcomes
  • Being an advocate both internally and externally for the reward systems and outcomes.
  • To bring measured, data led, rational debate to politicians, the media and other commentators to prevent or at least moderate the near hysteria around financial services and senior executive pay

Conclusion

The CIPD report is a timely looking glass in to the views of those who work in financial services as to issues of trust and reward.  It is well written and influential; I would recommend it to you. (Disclosure note; I undertook some analysis of the raw data in the report for the CIPD).  Both the CIPD and CityHR are clearly thought leaders in this field and their activities are to be applauded.  The report is an important part and input to the on-going discussion on this subject.

The report is also timely.  The results from the Banking Standards Inquiry by the UK’s House of Commons are due to be produced very soon.  Unfortunately it may be argued by some that it has been badly tainted even before release because:

  • The standards of politicians in the UK are at an all-time low and lecturing other people on ethics and standards is at best the pot calling the kettle black and at worst rank hypocrisy.
  • A lack of understanding of the world and work of financial services by MP’s who have seldom operated in the real world and those who have did so via the playing fields of Eaton (an elite fee paying school in England  attended by many of the UK cabinet and their advisors).
  • A large part of the problems with the collapse of trust in financial services is due to inaction by politicians and regulators who believed that light touch and not actually understanding what was going on was a good way to regulate a very complex, risky, global business.
  • A potential perception that there is a lot of band-standing and jealousy going on at Westminster village that does not aid credibility

I hope I am wrong and wait to read the report with interest.  However, the weight of history is against them; since when have politicians made anything better?

Failure is not an option unless we do want the politicians to bring their incredibly costly sledge hammers to smash some nuts that, it turns out on closer inspection, actually have nothing to do with the problem.

It is only by hard work based on sound data such as the CIPD report; and not taking some moral high ground and seeking to apportion blame; that will make the very necessary changes.  HR and reward in particular do have key roles to play.  At the end of the day there must be the drive and will in the Board room to make the required culture change a reality. 

#reward #rebuildtrust #CityHR #RBS #trust #financialservices #cipd #cityoflondon #stronganalytics #rewardmanagement #risk #riskinhr #hrblogs

 

 

 

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May 30, 2013

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Strong analytics

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Introduction

The UK’s CIPD has published its annual reward survey. The CIPD reward survey; http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/survey-reports/reward-management-2013.aspx  

“Our findings show organisations responding to multiple contextual factors in their reward management choices.  Economic conditions continue to drive pay decisions for many. In the private sector, market competition and employee value are also key drivers, while in the public sector
more traditional forms of reward management prevail.”

The drivers of reward continue to be to attract talent and reward productive behavior.  I would argue that retention is less important that it used to be due to the lose labour market. The survey also looks at employee benefits; these can both support the social culture of a business and provide valuable, cost effective non cash engagement tools.

One key aspect that Charles Cotton, the CIPD Reward and Performance advisor, notes is that the reward profession is not particularly advanced in analyzing information in a way that is useful for the business.  Cotton goes on to note that

 

“Few employers are able to calculate the cost of their compensation and benefit programs, let alone be able to express this as a proportion of revenue, profit or economic value added.”
   

 

 

 

 

Strong Analytics

Reward and HR professionals have a number of tools to add value to the business case:

  • Strong analytics
  • Employee segmentation
  • Data visualisation

Our colleagues in Finance use KPI’s and key ratios to illustrate financial outcomes and we must do the same in reward. We must understand:

  • Key business segments and drivers
  • The timeframe – immediate, medium or long term, for the business strategies in those key segments
  • Key performers in those segments and responsible for those drivers

This information can drive our reward strategy.  By presenting appropriate strong analytics through data visualisation on the basis of appropriate segmentation gives a very powerful tool kit for us to work with and make recommendations to line management.

Asking the right questions

Any good analytical work and modelling starts with asking the right questions.  There is no point providing large amounts of statistical data and analysis without have a clear view of the questions we are using the data to answer.  This is a big issue with big data.  We have the data; but what do we use it to prove or disprove? 

Reward interventions must “do” something; be it reduce turnover, encourage managers to align with the interests of shareholders, or produce specific results.  Reward professionals must be able to show the outcomes of their products and programs.   For example, we must be able to show the relationship between our variable pay spend and the revenue generation, the return on capital employer (RoCE) and other key financial indicators.

Disclosure requirements

The “Say on Pay” requirements in the US and the regulations in the UK require the production of charts showing, for example, growth in relative total shareholder return against executive compensation.  We must extent this type of analysis through the organisation to show the stakeholders in the business; be they employees, executives, shareholders and regulators, that our reward program is progressive, does not reward failure and, as far as is possible, is “fair”.

I have argued in other blog posts that we are seeing the erosion of privacy around pay.  Within five years we will be reporting, as a minimum, on employees by bands of pay and more likely very detailed pay statistics on every employee in our organisation in the interests of “fairness” and transparency.

Strong Analytics II

There is little excuse for not providing strong analytics with appropriate data visualisation. Microsoft Excel provides some very good analytical and graphing tools and using the PowerPivot addin allows for the analysis of very large data sets and even the development of simple data cubes.  That is before we get in to many of the off-the-shelf compensation management tools and packages.

Here is an example of strong analytics presented through visualisation I produced from some sample data:

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The use of Microsoft Excel’s conditional formatting provides some intuitive “at a glance” analysis of bonus levels by department.  I thought about the type of questions the CEO might want to ask about the data and provided the answers in graphical and colour formats.

This second example shows a very simple graph of correlation between TSR and total remuneration for a FTSE 100 Executive.  It immediately shows the linkage between pay and performance; although TSR needs to be measured over a much longer time period, or alternatively normalised to remove the effects of the economic cycle, to provide a better analytic.

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Conclusion

As the CIPD survey noted, reward is, as always, becoming more complicated.  At the same time we are seeing far more scrutiny of pay by the largely uninformed politicians, regulators, shareholder advocacy groups and the media.  We must arm ourselves for this intrusion by preparing our toolkit of strong analytics to defend our positions and explain our philosophy.

 

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May 15, 2013

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CIPD, Hackathon, HR, Reward, Reward communication, Reward Strategy, Social Media

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CIPD Hackathon – Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage; A reward perspective

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Introduction

The UK’s HR professional body, the CIPD has recently set up a “Hackathon” to look at how HR can build an adaptability advantage.  A good idea with an interesting approach.  There appears to be limited consideration of how reward will support and enhance the approaches.  Reward has powerful implements in its tool kit to support change.   So I set my mind to an analytical structure to think about building adaptability advantage.

Wisdom of crowds – a challenge

I am a great believer in the wisdom of crowds.  Therefore I throw a challenge out to all those interested in reward, change, innovation and HR to generate ideas as to how the reward toolkit can be used to support adaptability advantage.

The reward blockers

Reward is largely designed to support existing behaviour.  So, in some organisations, it is used to support the status quo.  Rewarding behaviour that supports the organisation’s ideology and putting reward power in the hands of managers who have an understandable vested interested in supporting the status quo.  The challenge is to design an analytical reward framework that supports creative destruction, moving on from the status quo to a new organisational state and ideology.

A suggested framework – resource based strategy

I have used the resource based strategy framework as a starting place.  I know this may be consider a little old fashioned, but it works for me and if you have a better structure I would be very pleased to hear about it!  Using the resource based strategy approach we look at:

  • Resources
  • Capabilities
  • Competencies
  • Value Chain

that support adaptability and how we can use reward to support these factors.

Resources

What are the resources that support adaptability – how do we identify and cluster them?  Clearly people are the key.  But, what sort of people?  One could argue that it is the mavericks and free thinkers that lead the charge on adaptability.  Yet these types of people do not always fit or engage well with the corporate environment.  How do we reward the disrupters in our organisation without descending in to some Faustian pit of chaos?

Capabilities

How do we build organisational and personal capability to support adaptability?  What would the reward structure supporting such capability building look like?  Would we know it if we saw it, how would me measure it?  Organisational learning and routines would be key in building these capabilities – but it has always been an interesting question in the management of knowledge as to how we measure and reward organisational learning?  (Even ignoring the concept that organisations do not “learn” people do the learning).

To sustain competitive advantage our capabilities in adaptability must be hard to imitate – otherwise everyone will copy us and probability at a lower cost.    So we have to reward not only specific capabilities but those that are hard to imitate.  They may be hard to imitate because they are specific to our corporate environment – but to gain competitive advantage they must be so much more than just organisationally or sector specific.

Competencies

The competencies we need should flow out of the capabilities – or perhaps not?  What specific, observable, rewardable competencies are required and with what and how are we rewarding them?

Value chain

What are the internal and external value chains using our unique resources and capabilities that lead to adaptability advantage?  We must look to our clusters of resources and capabilities and how these are combined to give our competitive advantage.  What reward tools do we use to strengthen our value chains and the activities that support them; perhaps across enterprises and organisations, turning rigid barriers porous?

Conclusion

There are far too many questions and too few answers in this blog.  If the reward perspective; which is incredibility powerful in encouraging behaviour change can be harnessed, using the wisdom of crowds, to the task of “Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage” we will not only add enormous value to the process; but we will be key in ensuring its enduring success.  Over to you O wise crowds.

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May 3, 2013

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Demographics, HR, Pensions, Reward

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The seven ages of pay(ne)

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Introduction

As a reward specialist and commentator I have a particular interest in the financial characteristics of the journey of life.  Shakespeare wrote of the seven ages of man; I like to think of it as the seven ages of pay(ne). 

  • 16-18 – Making hay and sowing oats with the Bank of mum and dad
  • 18-21 – Sunrise over the start of the loan journey
  • 21-30 – The breaking dawn of early earnings and mortgaging future pay
  • 30 -40 – (Un)Happy families – climbing the debt mountain
  • 40-50 – Sunlit uplands of peak earnings and debt repayment
  • 50-60 – Watching the sunset as the storm clouds gather; dawning realisation of old age – being the Bank of mum and dad
  • 60+ – Old age? – an undiscovered country

Each of these ages of pay(ne) has characteristics and needs.  Segmentation of the employee population for reward and benefits needs to consider the differing stages of the financial journey.

We will view the journey both from the individual and the corporate perspectives.

There is a presentation supporting this blog at http://prezi.com/j5bconnfij_q/seven-ages-of-payne/?kw=view-j5bconnfij_q&rc=ref-14837539

 

16-18 Making hay and sowing oats

This is the start of the great journey.  Unless we have had the good fortune of a financial education we worry not about the financial future; we are immortal.  The Bank of mum and dad provide the wherewithal to pursue hedonistic desires; even if the need for a good education and a part time job obstructs the high road.

18-21 Sunrise over the start of the loan journey

This age marks the start of the higher education adventure, but, at a cost.  Student and educational loans are an overhang for a large part of the financial journey.  For the corporates – and, for example, the armed services; it can provide a cheap way to encourage engagement.  This is achieved by sponsorship through this part of the voyage or by the promise of help with the initial debt burden.  As was said in the past “give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man” now the motto is “engage them at 18 and keep them for a while”.  Given the “war for talent” paying for engagement at ages 18-21 is cheaper than trying this later in life.

21-30 the breaking dawn of early earnings and mortgaging future pay

When mentoring undergraduates and graduate trainees I tell them that if they are not managers by age thirty they are unlikely to reach the top of their profession.   This is a time of rapidly increasing earnings. At the same time, they are mortgaging their future earnings to borrow to get their foot on the foot of the property ladder; or buy desirable consumer goods.  The financial decisions made here cast a shadow over the rest of the financial journey.  For organisations, the focus should be on a good base salary as the start of wealth creation, with the promise of future riches for good performance and engagement.  An issue is divining the motivations of this cohort.  We have seen generation X and Y come and go – what are the drivers of the new cohort?

30-40 (Un)happy families – climbing the debt mountain

For individuals this is the time of playing (un)happy families while also climbing the debt mountain of mortgages, school fees, loan repayments, divorce settlements, child maintenance and other claims on their wealth and income.  For the organisation; the provision of pension savings (even if not taken up), life cover, personal medical insurance and the like, all become part of the glue mix to hold on to high performers alongside the promise of wealth creation through equity LITPS (Long term incentive plans) and the like.  At one time having a final salary scheme was (at least in the UK) a good, albeit expensive way, to maintain loyalty – alas no more.  Working in investment banking I introduced a well-received concierge service for our cash rich but time poor traders.  Providing a benefit that is valued by employees is an important component of the glue recipe that supports corporate strategy and objectives.

  40-50 ~the sunlit uplands of peak earnings and (hopefully) debt repayment

In a professional or management career these are the peak earnings years. The children, if any, will have flown the nest.  Disposable income will  be available to repay the debt and, if one has been lucky, the wealth creation promises of LTIPs will start to provide a boost to lifestyle,  Perhaps, it is time to start some serious pension savings (far too late of course).  Organisations will seek to cocoon there employees of this age; both because of the investment in training and skills that would have taken place; also, because of the dawning demographic realisation that the talent train behind has left the station almost empty.  Employees have the potential to be looking for security and certainty or alternatively the chance to develop even further and perhaps in new directions.  Status is important now – job title or car, corner office or the key to the executive washroom.

50-60 watching the sunset as the storm clouds gather – the dawning realisation of old age and becoming the Bank of mum and dad.

This is the time when the ugly reality of the journey’s end comes into focus.  Only a few more years of earnings ahead; with little saved to live on in retirement.  Now, there is an increase in financial demands; grown up children looking for help to purchase a property. There may be financial demands from elderly relatives unable to afford decent care as they descend in to old age and destitution.    Dickens would have had a field day commenting on the plight of our elderly, inequality and unemployment.  For organisations, the provision of assistance with social care and financial education for retirement are of importance.  In the ideal world, providing the facility to wind-down before retirement by working part-time would be an option.  However, the realities of the demographics, economics and the current political malaise make this a difficult scenario.  Some argue that older workers are more productive and more reliable – one hopes so.  This is not the worst of times or the best of times to be in this group; but it is clearly no bed of roses no matter where you are in the world.

60+ old age? The undiscovered country

The average income for those over 65 in the USA is just under $30,000.  In the UK it is approximately $28,000. (The two data sets are not completely comparable).  Hardly a fortune and almost certainly giving a lower standard of living than the recipients had hoped.  Longevity is increasing at a tremendous rate in the developed world so more people are living longer but with less income.  A good news, bad news story; you will live longer but be poorer.  Now with the debt overhang of the individual, their children and potentially elderly relatives “The good life” is but a dream.

For organisations the changing demographics as well as the alleged lack of skills of the younger generation means that they should start to prepare to employ those over sixty in increasing numbers.  That will cause new challenges.

Conclusion

Segmentation of our employees is a useful tool in reward.  Reflecting on the different cohort’s needs and aspirations when aligned with our business and reward strategy is a powerful approach.   For individuals, financial planning and awareness of the bumpy weather on the journey ahead will help prepare us to make the best of the domain of our old age.

This article is tongue in cheek; but it reflects underlying truths for both organisations and individuals.  I hope you enjoy and have a profitable journey and good weather.  Now where is my map to the sunlit uplands?

 

 

 

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March 20, 2013

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UK Budget 2013; a reward perspective – 6/10 could do better

Bank of England

Introduction

This is a brief analysis of the UK’s 2013 from a Reward perspective.
It identifies five key factors when looking at the budget and provides an analysis against each factor as well as a score.  The overall view is that it could have been better but at least no serious damage has been done outside the appalling economic outlook.

Five lens to view the budget

In my view there are five lenses through which to view the budget:

  • Does it help labour market flexibility?
  • Does not interfere with the smooth functioning of the labour market?
  • Does not increase employment costs?
  • Does not increase the regulatory burden on employers?
  • Increases employment directly or indirectly?

The following sections will cover each of these lenses in turn

Does it help labour market flexibility?

The small cut in employer’s NI bill will help small businesses either go on employing or employ more staff.  One out of two for effort.

Does not interfere with the smooth functioning of the labour market?

The cap on wage increases in the public sector does interfere with the smooth functioning.  It artificially reduces pay and will impact the private sector and create distortions in employment; particularly in areas with high public sector employment such as parts of Wales and Scotland.  This factor has the possibility of unintended consequences.

Does not increase employment costs?

There are no obvious increases in employment costs so two marks here.  Well done, good effort.

Does not increase the regulatory burden relating to employment?

A bit of a sting in the tail here.  The NI reduction will be claimed through the real time tax reporting.  A survey yesterday showed that about 40% of small businesses had not understood or prepared for the introduction.  A question then arises how they are going to claim; it is also a back door incentive to use an unpopular regulatory burden.

Increases employment

The Chancellor has estimated that there will be a potential 600,000 new jobs.  Where they come from, how much they will pay and if they will be full or part time is hard to say.  We are currently seeing labour market dislocation with large increases in part time and low paid jobs; perhaps (and it is not clear) at the cost of permanent full time well-paid jobs.  One mark for wishful thinking.

Conclusion

Overall the budget has done little harm from a Reward perspective and, although it may be wishful thinking there is the possibility of some job creation.  This is counterweighted by the cap on public sector salaries which distorts the free functioning of the labour market.r

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October 15, 2012

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The narrative of reward

I was rereading a collection of essays by William Gibson (the inventor of the term “cyberspace”) called “Distrust that particular flavour”.  Gibson has a wonderful narrative style.  As an example he writes, “The end point of human culture may well be a single point of effectively endless duration, an infinite digital Now”.  Reading it made me reflect on the power of narrative and how it may be harnessed to benefit the communication of reward.
The power of storytelling in business is well known; http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickhanlon/2011/10/10/8-master-storylines-for-business-storytellers-part-1/, but how can we undertake successful storytelling to develop a narrative for reward?  Telling a story gives meaning, cohesion and structure to complex subjects.  It allows our audience to engage in a powerful way and leads to a much greater understanding of our subject than a dry, dusty, factual exposition.  My children seem to pick up more history from the comic story telling of the BBC’s “Horrible histories”   than from well-crafted history lessons at school.
In this time of social media and press scrutiny of reward we have a vast audience of interest.  It includes politicians, shareholders, staff, non-executive directors, compensation committees, regulators, tax authorities. the public, journalist and pundits.  All have different understandings, agendas and viewpoints.  By using a good story of what we are achieving and what we hope to do we can craft a broad canvas to interest and engage our audiences.
The recently published best-selling book “Thinking, fast and slow” by Kahneman strongly extolls the importance to human thinking of making things simple and memorable rather than presenting concepts that require a lot of mental effort and thought.  It argues that people bring to mind the simple and memorable far quicker and perhaps in a more positive way than something that requires to be thought about.  Providing an engaging and interesting tale of success will frame the way our audiences view our work.  With that achieved we can perhaps seek to reveal the complexity and ambiguity that is the actual context of so much reward work.
Engagement is key to understanding.  A well-crafted story creates the images and metaphors that define how people think about reward.  Many of us have read Gareth Morgan’s “Images of Organisation”.  This has a powerful narrative of how the way we use metaphors about our organisation defines how we visualise and think about them.  Do we think of our organisation in warlike terms, “the fight for success” or sporting metaphors, “going for gold” (very apt after the successful Olympics)?  These metaphors will largely define how we think about our organisation.  In the same way the story and metaphors we use in our reward narrative will define how our audiences think about and visualise our products.  Think for a moment about the different images that arise from the use of the word “reward” as opposed to “compensation”.  Reward has positive images, compensation perhaps less so.  Are we rewarding people for their contribution or compensating them for their time and effort?
A good narrative also helps us as reward experts in carefully defining the “well-formed outcomes” that we hope to achieve as well as giving coherence to our thoughts and approaches.
My two final challenges to myself is to work out how I can craft a powerful story that is relevant to the multi-country, multi-cultural environments in which I operate and how I can find time amid all the operational pressures!  Any offers for a solution or some amazing stories on those complex issues?

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October 11, 2012

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Complexities of reward

My wife and I like to work together to solve the Telegraph quick crossword on my ipad, we are not good enough yet to attempt the cryptic crossword. We like crosswords as they test our knowledge but also because you can go off down the wrong path very easily and not realise it until that last clue where you know the answer but it does not fit in the grid because of an earlier wrong answer.
Reward is like this in many ways. It is moving from being the quick puzzle to being a very cryptic crossword where mistakes can be made and not discovered until a long way in to the process or product design. It has become apparent to me that Reward is at a crossroads, in the middle of a maze. There are now so many stakeholders involved, employees, management, compensation committees, regulators shareholder advocacy groups, trade unions and politicians it is difficult to know which way to turn. They all have different viewpoints, different agendas different understandings and different needs.
There is a lack of common ground, common language and common definitions. What, after all is high pay or low pay for that matter? Are we looking at absolute or relative levels of pay? Are we comparing with some mystery average or mean? As a result what looks fair and reasonable to a Compensation Committee looks like highway robbery to a trade union. The area is fought with paradox. We can see these paradoxes at work in the controversy over BBC pay for talent. Because the BBC is funded by licence payers there is the application of a different standard for, say Jeremy Clarkson, than there would be if he worked for a privately funded broadcaster. Yet the labour market in which he operates is exactly the same. Is he supposed to be happy to earn less because he works for the BBC? Would we be happy to be paid less because we work in the public sector, and judging by the latest earning statistics for those in the public sector vs. the private sector the answer to that is a clear no.
What we and others are paid is very important; yet there is no overarching theory on pay and reward. There are attempts such as the excellent tournament theory or expectation theory for example. Labour market economists will talk about supply and demand – but that is not the entire story. Behavioural economics are increasing playing a part in pay theory. Yet, like Steven Hawkins attempt at a grand unifying theory we are really nowhere near achieving a consensus on what is fair pay.
So reward specialist have the issue of not only undertaking complex work on pensions, share options, taxation, total reward, flexible benefits, accounting standards, compensation disclosure rules and the like but we have to be able to justify our recommendations before the court of public opinion, political scrutiny and regulatory microscopes. Often with the benefit of 20 20 hindsight.
There are two concerns around the complexity. The first is that there are very few individuals who can move between the technically complex and the “public relations” facets of current reward activities. Second, only the larger companies have the resources and time to fully fulfil the requirements, demands and disclosures needed by the stakeholders, Reward normally sits in HR, yet it has strong interfaces with Finance, investor relation, Risk and Compliance, to name but a few.
Perhaps a new breed of expert will appear phoenix like from the current ashes of the shareholder spring; but somehow I think we will just muddle along as always, relying on expensive consultancies