On the Kūlia i ka nu‘u warpath: the Compensation Enemy

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Comments

[Maria Palma]

I believe that your best customers are your very own employees. If you can't take care of your employees, how can you take care of your customers?

[Rick Fuqua]

The downward spiral:

Low Compensation > Morale Declines > Turnover Increases > Service Deteriorates > Customer Complain > Sales Decline > Revenues Decline > Compensation is Lowered > ......

But of course every business must be able to sustain fair compensation through improving results.

Sounds like this company has an opportunity for results driven compensation, productivity bonuses or maybe even retention bonuses to stop the turnover. This may be difficult if the revenues do not support the costs, but strong leadership can overcome the spiral if there are clear goals and rewards for achievement.

I respect that you are helping them regain their sense of teamwork and pride.

[Rocky]

What a great article Rosa. I recently started a new job. I manage (hope to say lead someday) a small office of social workers. They have huge demands and small rewards. The turnover is as you would expect, tremendous. Stress and burnout are more common than lunchtime meals. The agency has a wonderful mission, but the staff are not connected to it. The staff is constantly running in emergency mode. You are so right, the staff have to be connected to the mission and then paid competitively. if not you will continue to struggle with turnover and less than satisfactory results. Thanks for a great article and get me on your MWA plan. Thanks.

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Maria, welcome to Talking Story and the Ho‘ohana Community, and thank you for your comment; well said. It is certainly true that anticipating the needs of our own employees, and working toward exceeding them, is exceptional “customer service practice.”

Rick, the downward spiral you mention is such a horrible thought! It is eerily accurate though, and exactly what we must understand low compensation levels will move us toward. Managers so often will complain, “all my staff cares about is the money they make” when a) it is only one motivator, albeit a basic one, and b) self-righteousness about that attitude in someone else doesn’t fix the potential problem.

You have cited compensation opportunities they have been assuming “the answer will be no” to, without even asking the right questions about them, and that is what we are working on now. The team is strong in so many ways, and I am very encouraged because of what we have to work with. This is largely a case of killing automatic pilot with an old business model.

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Rocky, thank you for jumping in here. It sounds like you have your hands full right now, however from what I have come to know about you, I am also very confident that your new workplace is lucky to have you as their manager!

I have always had much admiration and high respect for those in social work; I honestly do not know if I would have as much tenacity and resilience. I love working with business enterprise because it is a niche in which we can create better resources so much more readily, being more directly in control of funding our efforts VIA our own efforts.

Your mention of mission alignment resonates with a discussion within the MWA jumpstart program this month:
http://www.managingwithaloha.com/2006/03/key_words_key_t.html