Yearly Archives: 2006

Wanna know how much I make?

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586390_u_s__quartersThe Chief Happiness Officer does. And he’s got good reason for wanting to know. Among other things, he thinks it might make salaries more fair, make it easier to retain the best employess and keep pressure on the highest earners to earn their keep.

The idea of open salaries is contentious. It’s throught provoking. It’s also downright brilliant. I’m a strong believer in the power of transparency to right wrongs, reduce red tape and eliminate waste –and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work for salaries. Except one. it would require that employees be willing to accept their status in the corporation. For those at the bottom to understand that and be okay with being there.

To a certain extent, everyone knows their status already – people know how much they make and have a general idea of what others pull in. But to whatever extent they’ve justified those salaries to themselves, they would be forced, in this new world, to justify them to everyone else, too. “I’m okay with being worth $X.” That may just be too painful and demotivating to be productive for the organization.

The post is a rather fair dissection of both sides of the open/closed salaries argument – a worthy 5 minute read – even though we know which side wins.

You’re getting fired if…

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From AOL/CareerBuilder comes this list of 12 signs you’re getting fired. Everyone loves lists, but perhaps this one is somewhat overzealous in its paranoia.

#4 on the list is “You had a bad review.” Certainly most companies don’t fire you for a bad review - even if you’re on a performance improvement plan as the article implies.

#12 is “You’re hearing rumors.” Yeah, that one is the key. ‘Cause as we all know, rumors are the source of all truth. Come on.

Though I’m frowning on parts of the execution – the concept is good (and there are some legitimate points in the article). So what are some REAL signs you’re about to lose your job? If I get enough comments I’ll post a list from the real experts – you!

Reality TV for business: House of Boateng

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BoatengPerhaps somewhat off topic, I thought I would point out an interesting show that’s been airing on the Sundance channel. Called “House of Boateng,” it follows the zany misadventures of Ozwald Boateng (seen left), a London-based fashion designer, in his attempts to penetrate the US market. Along the way, he meets wild and wacky investors, throws tempter tantrums and alienates employees in his attempt to make it big across the pond. (He also does this strange dance when he feels uncomfortable, or is in the spotlight, and that alone makes the show worth watching.)

Now, ordinarily, you wouldn’t find me watching much reality television – especially on the Sundance Channel – but in all fairness to myself, this is the summer season and good TV is hard to find. In any case, the reason I mention it here is that Mr. Boateng is like a lot of small business owners. While exceptionally talented at what he does, and very successful to boot, Boateng’s domineering style and penchant for micro-management results in all sorts of fun-to-watch chaos as the business leaps and lurches it’s way to growth.

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HR means Higher Revenues

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HigherRevenuesphoto_illus_1I stole the title for this post from this Fortune Small Business article which recaps a survey of over 300 small businesses. The survey concluded that HR can be the deciding factor between an “explosive” business and a “sluggish” one (and they have some really cool cartoons that highlight the points, like the one to the left).

There are some very good supporting points, but my favorite is this one: Companies with controlling bosses lagged companies that give employees more autonomy. By a lot. Those with more autonomy had faster revenue growth (14.6% to 3.2%), profit growth (8.7% to 4.8%) and lower turnover (8.5% to 23.6%). (Wowza!)

I’m starting to think that this goal of HR being strategic is too tame. When we can show that HR means more money, everyone should pay attention.

 

 

Guest Post: Job competency models – Do they fit business?

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JakePicA Note: this post was written by a guest writer, and does not necessarily represent my opinion. That said, I think it’s important to host a variety of thoughts and perspectives on the blog and thus, I give you the following article written by Jake Adger of SuccessFactors. It is in response to an earlier guest post entitled “From Our Research: Teamwork is a good thing. Sometimes” As always, please feel free to comment, we want to know what you think.

A book I read over my recent vacation brought up an interesting idea – task specific competency requirements.  This is a very intuitive idea but one that doesn’t seem to be embraced by the job competency models that are often implemented by HR.  A recent post by our own Erik Berggren on the SuccessFactors blog pointed out that teamwork is a competency that is more important in some tasks than others.

Discussion of the complexity of successful M&As in Winning by Jack Welch focuses mainly on the relative importance of teamwork in M&A situations.  He says basically that a merger of equals is impossible because forming such a team of equals leads to paralysis in merger integration.  In merger integration situations there is always a balance between heavy handedness by the acquirer and consultation with the acquired company.  Too much heavy handedness can kill the culture and decimate the talent pool of the acquired company.  Too much consultation can lead to indecision and wasted time.

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Jack Welch loves HR

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Really, truly an invigorating little article from a couple of days ago in the UK’s Telegraph. In it, Jack and wife Suzy embark on a spirited defense of the importance of HR. I wish I had something to add to the article beyond a straightforward “see, I told you so” but I don’t. So in place of the usual musings, I give you a few of my favorite bits:

Bit #1:
“Look, HR should be every company’s “killer app”. What could possibly be more important than who gets hired, developed, promoted or moved out the door?”

Bit #2:
“If you owned Real Madrid, for instance, would you hang around with the team accountant or the director of player personnel?  Sure, the accountant can tell you the financials. But the director of player personnel knows what it takes to win: how good each player is and where to find strong recruits to fill talent gaps.”

Bit #3:
“Leaders need to put their money where their mouths are and let HR do its real job: elevating people management to the same level of professionalism and integrity as financial management.”

Yes, indeed.

Read the whole article. You’ll be better off for it.

Engagement crisis solved!

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According to this survey, more than 66% of workers describe their jobs as a source of “personal fulfilment.”

Wow, that’s fairly remarkable.

But just when you think you’re getting somewhere on this whole engagement thing, they hit you with: “the survey also confirmed that work remains simply a way of making a living for many people. Half (51%) said their work was ‘a means to an end’.”

And……we’re back where we started.

So while work can be fulfilling, most people would also rather be doing something else. I guess that rings pretty true. What do you think?

Guest Post: Don’t Believe the Counter-Hype: Software as a Service Is Here To Stay

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Lars-Dalsgaard-3A Note: this post was written by a guest writer, and does not necessarily represent my opinion. That said, I think it’s important to host a variety of thoughts and perspectives on the blog and thus, I give you the following article written by Lars Dalgaard, the CEO of SuccessFactors. As always, please feel free to comment.

As an outsider that moved into the software industry five years ago, I’ve been amazed to watch the wild mood swings that take place due to over-hyped and over-marketed technology trends – which every vendor seems to chase loudly in pursuit of “the next big thing.”

Of course, customers in the real world are more focused on “what’s now” rather than “what’s next.” And yet they have to wade through reams of white papers, data sheets and web site content to figure out whose software actually does what – and then hope the promised features actually migrated from the press release commentary into the real product code.

The same type of real-world sanity check can tell you whether a technology trend is here to stay or hyped to decay. A good litmus test is whether it’s vendor-driven or customer-driven.

It’s exactly this test that I believe can sort through the hot topic du jour: software-as-a-service. Admittedly the topic has been heavily hyped by Silicon Valley types looking to drive big multiples. And now that some of those high-profile players have experienced some hiccups, the naysayers are working overtime to call the whole idea into question. Scare tactics and “what if” scenarios abound to push people back into their comfort zones.

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Your employer is taking advantage of you

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That’s the conclusion from our most recent blog poll in which we asked “At your company, do employees who do a better job get paid more?”

The results break down like this with the far larger group (58%) of respondents saying No.

PaidFairly

It’s not scientific, but it is interesting. Seems to me that the likelihood of one being fully engaged in their job if its felt that others are rewarded more richly for doing lower quality work approaches zero.

Another argument for some sort (any sort) of pay for performance program.

New poll coming shortly.

SaaS is about results

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ShinycarShinycarMy favorite SaaS blogger, Phil Wainewright, has a great post from last week about the real benefit of SaaS: It lets everyone focus on results.

He puts it better than I could:

Now, for the first time since that wrong turn the software vendors made all those years ago, on-demand applications are putting business results back into focus. The vendor has already done the implementation before even meeting the customer. The technology is already sorted, and the vendor guarantees to keep it working. What matters is whether the application meets the customer’s business need. The whole conversation revolves around what the customer is trying to achieve, and whether the application can help with that.

Well, isn’t that really what software is meant for in the first place? To get results? It seems quite obvious, but most of our experiences tell us it’s all too rare.

The point he doesn’t make is that we can get to results way faster with SaaS than any traditional software implementation. We don’t need to spend a ton of time or money or effort on the software itself, so we’re free to spend all of our resources pursuing our goals.

It’s kind of like if we had to build a car every time we wanted to go somewhere new. That would clearly be a lot of work. SaaS is like having a car delivered to your door. You still have to drive it to your destination, but don’t have to worry about whether or not (or even how) the car itself works.