From a human resource perspective, good managers are developed and certainly not born. And in most cases, they are not even developed. Rather, most organizations take the most senior non-manager in a functional area and make them the functional manager. One day the employee has no management responsibilities, and the next they are a manager. That manager role is viewed as a promotion, and in most instances promotional pay adjustments are granted. Generally, the new manager has all the trappings of management but no experience, training, or coaching. The assumption is that people who have been excellent in non-management roles will also be good managers.
The problem with this relative to total rewards is frequently these new managers have little or no experience in coaching, developing, providing feedback, performance management, or granting rewards based on skill, competence, and performance. Often new managers are tested quickly, and can rapidly lose employee trust if they do not do a good job in what matters to the workforce they lead. But there is typically no going back from a manager role. If the employee fails as a manager, it usually means a loss of status and prestige to return to a non-management role.
Managing High-Performance Total Rewards
All the communications materials prepared by human resources in the world can´t replace a manager who is trained, willing, and able to manage the rewards offered by an organization. Managers know the performance and the skills and competencies needed and how to help an employee acquire and apply them to generate desired results. Without qualified managers, it is not likely a total rewards program linked to the business can thrive. The reasons for this are the following:
- One-size-fits-all rewards solutions are universally implemented when the organization lacks the ability to use performance management to identify the top 20% high performers of the workforce.
- Skill, competence, and performance are avoided as criteria for extra rewards when the organization believes managers can´t or will not give feedback, coaching, or make tough performance calls.
- When the organization´s managers are not able to tell 80% of the workforce why the 20% is most valuable and how they can join this group, rewards tend to be evenly distributed to everyone.
A recent WorldatWork member poll indicated that many employees do not understand total rewards, how they fit in their lives, and the relationship between total rewards and their organization´s success. This is probably a commentary on the lack of preparation of managers to communicate the message accurately. So because they are not able or willing in many instances to communicate a differentiated message based on skill, competence, and performance, avoiding making differences is easier. However, this leads to the possibility of wholesale cutbacks in reward opportunities when faced with lean times and without the chance to save the rewards of top performers.
Tactics of Rewards Management
Employees who are unwilling or unable to manage performance should not be supervisors or managers. Finding out after the fact is not good practice because the organization has probably lost a great non-manager in the process of promotion and subsequent failure at distributing rewards. We like temporary management or supervisory assignments as part of developmental rotation programs to give possible managers the chance to acquire and apply the skill they will need should they become managers. It is important that organizations be successful at making employees supervisors. That is because failure creates two losses for the organization-loss of a supervisor or manager and the probable loss of what may be the best non-management employee in a skill area.
Tactically, the idea of a "lead" position rotation not only for hourly employees but also for professional employees gives both the employee and the organization the chance to test the waters relative to the skills needed to manage-especially management in the human resource skills and capabilities. Rotating these lead roles gives the organization the chance to identify potential managers and the employee the chance to see if management would be to their liking. Rotating the assignment makes assuming the lead role for a period and then relinquishing it culturally acceptable, too.
Managers are "Made" But Not Everyone
Managers make performance management and total rewards work. Not everyone should be a manager. Management and supervision are skills and competencies that differ from others the organization needs. We believe if any misunderstanding exists about total rewards or hesitation continues about the value of rewarding performance, it is because managers and supervisors have not been prepared for the task. Too often a quality non-managerial employee is suddenly given a supervisory or management role with little or no understanding of what is required or preparation for doing the job effectively. This needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
So good managers view performance management as a positive opportunity to communicate, and they do this at every opportunity-not just formally once a year. As they say, "practice makes perfect." Because this is such an important challenge to becoming a high-performance organization and to developing talent, managers and supervisors should be selected not necessarily because they are the best non-manager but rather because they understand how to lead, supervise and reward people to form a unified and effective organization.
© 2006 Jay R. Schuster and Patricia K. Zingheim
JAY R. SCHUSTER and PATRICIA K. ZINGHEIM are partners in Schuster-Zingheim and Associates, Inc., a compensation and total rewards consulting firm founded in 1985 in Los Angeles. Their practice includes incentives/variable pay, base pay management, performance management, total rewards strategies, executive and sales compensation, and recognition. They are recipients of WorldatWork´s 2006 Keystone Award. Their Website is www.paypeopleright.com and phone number is 310-471-4865.
