Tag: HR

Reward package

When it comes to the end of the year, we often get an email from HR reassuring us that our wages will be analysed, and changes will be made so we are paid a fair wage.

Define “fair”.

When there is inflation, if your wage doesn’t rise to match, that is essentially a pay cut because the money you get just isn’t worth the same as it used to be. HR often say that it has never been a policy to give inflation rises, but how is that fair?

They will often say that raises will be given based on performance, but with some exclusions (if you have had a recent promotion or wage rise). Then they say they look at what other companies pay, but that’s purely based on trust. 

  • How many companies do they look at? 
  • How do they find equivalent jobs to base the comparison against?

We carry out external benchmarking to ensure our salaries are competitive and fair in today’s market.

We use external salary data to develop market rate midpoints for roles.  This is the rate of pay for someone who is fully competent in the role and therefore individual salaries may be below or above the midpoint. Our  salary  frameworks  are  reviewed  on  an  annual  basis  to  ensure  they  remain  fair, competitive, and are suitably benchmarked both internally and externally.

If you are promoted or move into a new role that is an approved vacancy, the new salary will be determined by the new line manager and HR , subject to approval by the Senior Leader of the relevant business  area. If a proposed  increase  is more than 5%, it  will need to be approved by the relevant executive member and the Head of HR)

HR

See, it is a wishy washy definition and claim. If they are paying fairly, why are there so many people required to sign off a rise of more than 5%? If you were underpaid before and deserve a large rise, then why is this process there?

There’s been times where people get promoted or change roles, and the difference in wages is very large. But they have the skills and the attitude to do it, yet are told the rise is too large, so it needs to spread over a few years. Yet, if they employed someone externally, they would give them the starting salary, maybe even allow them to negotiate a higher one. But the loyal employee that they know is good? – don’t want to give them the money.

Just remember: companies would rather pay $25k to a recruiter to replace you than give you a $25k raise

Overtime

I’ve criticised overtime in many of my blogs. I think it encourages slacking because you can create the need for overtime by not doing your work during contracted hours. Since overtime is usually given based on your hourly rate, overtime is even more beneficial if you are already paid more, but yet you could be doing the exact same work that everyone else is doing.

When you reach a certain rank, our contracts then say that you can no longer receive payment due to “their contracts allow more flexibility to work additional hours to fulfil their duties”. I don’t even know what that means. We all have reasonably flexible work hours.

Total Rewards

Another way we get fobbed off is with the phrasing “total reward”. They claim that our benefits are first-rate even though I think our holiday allowance is pretty standard in the industry, and there’s the usual basic discounts like “gym membership”, “cycle to work scheme”, “voucher discounts”, and “free eye test”. 

Our reward framework is based on a “total reward” approach. Total reward includes not only monetary rewards such as pay, bonus, incentives and “core” benefits (holidays, etc.), but also recognition (financial and non-financial),  development  and  progression  opportunities  and work/home life balance. Our total reward philosophy is designed to ensure that our people feel valued, recognised and motivated to give their best at work every day.

HR

This is just HR buzzword spam. 

Some of the rewards they hype up, but then it turns out to be rubbish. There was one where they said we could get “discounts on technology” so we could get cheap laptops/PCs/tablets/phones etc. However, when you read into the terms, it was an average saving of 5% from the recommended retail price. Yet you could go into a shop like Curry’s PC World, and find the same items on sale (>5%). Then going through the process was actually more effort because there’s loads of forms to fill in. More effort, and it costs more; brilliant.

Another classic one is Costco membership. I’ve never shopped at Costco, but you need a membership card to shop there.  For some reason, they restrict who can sign up, but some Costco representatives would come visit the office, and if you signed up and showed them your work badge to prove you worked here, then you could get a membership card.

Someone asked HR what the benefit is of signing up when the Costco staff come visit the office. The employee could go and sign up directly in the Costco store. The reply was that they often ”bring free cakes” to the office, and you’d have the advantage of “not needing to take your ID badge to the Costco store”.  Wow, amazing benefit. Like I said, they hype up a benefit then it turns out to be not much of a benefit at all.

The Pregnancy

My manager received an email from HR apologising for some erroneous emails:

Email Notification Error – PLEASE IGNORE 

We are always looking to improve our HR processes and carry out regular routine work within our IT System to ensure we deliver the smoothest experience. 

It has come to our attention that a recent tweak to our maternity process has accidentally triggered an email to be sent to some employees. 

Please note, this email was sent in error. 

If you received this email, please ignore it and we apologise for any confusion caused. 

Many thanks,

Paul

The email they are referring to is a pregnancy email sent about male employees. I wonder what sort of change they made to their system. Were they modernising and allowing male employees to declare pregnancy?

Hello Andy, 

It's now been a few months since we last contacted you, advising that Steven notified us of their pregnancy. 

We'd like to remind you of a couple of things, should they be applicable:

Since completing the initial Expectant Mothers Risk Assessment, should either your or your team member feel their work circumstances have changed and would benefit from a further assessment, please complete a new assessment and upload to the "Risk Assessment screen

If the original maternity dates have changed, please remember to raise an HR ticket to ensure their payment during their maternity leave is calculated correctly. 

Should you require any further support, please raise a HR ticket.