compensation

Who is HR responsible for?

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In the fallout from the BBC pay debate, I found myself responding to indignant comments about the “state of HR” by pointing out that I very much doubted that the contracts that were under discussion were covered by the BBC’s HR team. The debate was around the payments made to the “talent”, the actors and presenters that were contracted to the BBC. They weren’t (as far as I can understand) actual employees.

I haven’t worked in television, but my guess is that the commercial contacts for “talent” are probably handled entirely separately to the pay and wage structures that would be handled by the HR team.  A comparison would be a football team – whilst many of the big clubs now have HR Directors, they’re normally responsible for the teams that operate behind the scenes and not the players themselves. That’s why situations such as a Bosman can occur – something that would never normally happen in an employment contract.

The closest I’ve ever been is my time in publishing and I think it would be fair to say that it would have been considered entirely bizarre if I’d suggested as HR Director that I should have had some input to the structure of the contracts that were signed with our authors. But should I have had?

That’s the real question that the situation at the BBC brings to the fore. Most of us in well run businesses now are focussed on pay structures, on job evaluation, equal pay and of course gender pay reporting. But only for those “employees” or “workers” that are seen to be the remit of the HR department. In a world where increasing focus is being placed on the fairness of compensation structures should we be extending the same principles that apply to employees to other associated groups of people (I’m not entirely sure what to call them as a collective). Not necessarily as the responsibility of the HR function – simply using the same methodology.

The BBC have rightly had the light shone on them, but what about Sky, ITV, Channel 4, Amazon, Netflix etc.? And whilst we’re at it, what about the vast difference between the pay of premier league footballers versus their female equivalents? Are there justifiable reasons? Which other industries have groups of non-employees where there are discriminatory pay practices that pass under the radar because they’re not strictly considered employees?

Maybe this is an opportunity for HR to share its knowledge of remuneration and compensation management with other parts of the business. To use our expertise in handling similar situations and the lessons we’ve learnt as we’ve worked to improve the balance between our employees. If our principle concern is unfairness, it seems to me the issue goes far beyond the BBC.

 

 

7 lessons I’ve learnt in HR

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I was asked last week, what advice I would have given myself at the beginning of my career. After a little bit of reflection, I think it would go a little like this.

  1. Reward yourself
    There are a number of specialisms that you can often move in to. It is very easy early on to be lured into resourcing or learning or employment relations. But if you want to make it to the top of your profession, the one you really need to get your head around is compensation and reward. That’s the area that really requires your attention, thought and understanding.
  2. Brands don’t matter
    The best jobs aren’t always with the best known companies. It is very easy to be attracted by the thought of working for the bigger brand names, the ones that will be familiar to your friends and family, but the best opportunities will often lie elsewhere. Rather than looking at the logo on the add, look at the reviews of the company, think about the experience that you want to develop.
  3. Titles mean nothing
    When I started my career, job titles were pretty standard across companies and between teams. There were always a few areas of overlap, but it was pretty linear. Very quickly things started to change and it all got a whole lot messier. Job titles mean almost nothing. You can be the CEO of a business of one, or a Manager of hundreds of people. Think content, think scope, don’t think business card.
  4. Move around
    You will learn more by changing industries than you will ever anticipate. Explore the opportunities to go elsewhere, learn from different cultures, different models, different sectors. Show you can be successful in any environment and adapt your practice. There are assumptions made that industry experience is a necessity, it isn’t, that’s just a lazy lie.
  5. Go global
    Our workplaces, our organisations and our workforces are increasingly international. And whilst people have broadly the same constitution whether you might be in the world, the way in which they interact, the way in which they consider issues and they way in which they work together will be different. Getting experience of this doesn’t mean jumping on a plane every week, instead think about how you gain good international exposure.
  6. Have fun
    Nobody is going to die from the work you do. Well, not normally. So don’t forget to enjoy what you are doing, have fun, be playful, be light-hearted and remember that the more positivity you exude the more you will get back. People spend more time than they should at work and helping them to enjoy that experience is part of your job too. Don’t think discretionary effort, think discretionary enjoyment.
  7. Don’t dig in
    Don’t go in to the trenches when you think you’re under attack, but instead seek to understand how you can change, learn and grow. A lot of the work that you do won’t be welcomed by a standing ovation and streamers and balloons. But you need to differentiate the normal reaction from the times when you get it wrong. Understand that you can learn from other people in the business about how to do great work, not just from conferences and journals.

A rewarding conversation

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I read a lot of blogs from the HR community, both here in the UK and in other less developed countries….like the US. I read good, bad and indifferent posts about a range of subjects. I read about engagement, resourcing, learning, strategy (pause for theatrical laughter) but I seldom read about reward.

The very essence of employment is reward. We might try to shy away from it, we might try to avoid it, but put simply, work is undertaken only for reward. Whether it is the exchange of goods, the promise of salary or of course the contentious bonus.

We work for return.

So why is it that we talk so much about so many other areas of our remit, but so little about reward?

Is it too hard? Is it too sensitive? Or have we forgotten the essential element that underpins our existence as HR people, because we would rather focus on the froth?

Reward has been the driver behind so much of our corporate success and corporate failure over the last gazillion decades. It has taken more mainstream column inches than any engagement initiative or recruitment technology. Yet for all the creative thinking that the blogosphere offers, so little of it is dedicated to the biggest prize of all.

When I’ve written about reward in the past it has had a mixed reaction.

My mind boggles, I need to address these topics, I need to think about these things more clearly. I don’t have the answers, I’m not even sure I have the questions, but I know that as a profession we need to be thinking about this topic in so much more detail.

So…..why aren’t we?