We do not recommend having a policy that stipulates childcare is necessary. For one thing, in practice, it often isn’t necessary. Lots of employees are able to do their jobs just fine while supervising children in the home.

Equity compensation is a truly unique element in the total rewards toolbox. The one thing we all agree on is that equity is not as effective as it could be, because so few HR and compensation professionals truly understand it. This article boils down to some of the most important things you need to know about equity compensation if you want your programs to work better.

Given enough Lego and you can build just about anything. Sales compensation is similarly simple, flexible, and potentially complex. Do you focus people on volume, quality of sales, profitability, growth, long-term builds? This list is nearly endless. How you motivate people to stay focused is similarly flexible. Do you use commissions, SPIFFs, spot bonuses, long-term incentives, quarterly goals, annual goals, team metrics, or individual achievement? Do you focus on granularity or stay tuned with the big picture? Any program requires buy-in from so many people and groups. The final result is something that people depend on to pay their own bills and keep their company afloat. Making small changes is simple, but real change is hard.

As we attempt to grow our companies or rehire and recover from the last 18 months, it is apparent employers are all attempting to understand why some of our talented employees are looking for new opportunities. Sometimes, those opportunities don’t appear to be necessarily better as they are offering comparable pay or room for advancement. So why is our talent disappearing?

Employee burnout is something all organizations face regardless of industry, employee experience or position within the company. When that is coupled with the stress of the past 18 months, including COVID, political unrest, and other stressors in our lives, we find that people can begin buckling under that pressure. Keeping that in mind, as leaders, we need to figure out ways to not only retain our employees but, keep them from reaching the point where they burn out. We addressed retention in our last blog post and went into detail about ways to improve your culture and unearth underlying issues within your team.

When the approach to sales incentives precedes the establishment of a defined sales structure and process, improving sales incentives can be driven by guesses. A compensation professional likes to mix just a little bit of science with their art, and sales incentives without a structure are basically 100% art. So, what do you do when you are asked to help fix these programs?

Everyone who has ever worked on sales incentives has heard people refer to roles as “farmers” and “hunters”. These two terms are used to simplify the focus of sales roles and the type of pay they receive. Unfortunately, this clouds the roles of salespeople in many of today’s businesses. Professionals who have the responsibility of bringing in new revenue are more complex than we often recognize. In truth, many are more like ranchers than they are farmers or hunters.

A widely held belief is that the underlying purpose of a Performance Improvement Plan is to begin the documentation process toward termination. This might be the case. But it may not be.

Employers spend considerable time and money searching for a candidate and even more time and money training that employee to carry out the job responsibilities. Employers generally want to work with employees and try to retain them.

It’s still too early to tell how great the “Great Resignation” will be. Or if it even lives up to that description. True, lots of employees are considering changing jobs, but there’s a world of difference between thinking about quitting and actively hunting for a new opportunity. There’s no doubt, though, that employees want more out of their work life. And they’re willing to fight for what they want or leave if they don’t get it.

What more do these unsatisfied employees want? That depends. Really, the best way to learn what your employees want is simply to ask them. We cannot stress this enough. Check-ins with managers are an ideal time for this if both managers and their direct reports are comfortable having such conversations. Anonymous surveys are another option. If nothing else, conduct exit interviews.

But while individual desires vary, they tend right now to fall into a few general themes: greater freedom and flexibility, a bigger say in the workplace, better compensation, and increased safety and security. Employers that can meet these demands have an advantage in today’s job market. Let’s look at each in turn.

Equity Compensation has been slowly going through its own version of climate change. Much like our planet, the environment for equity compensation has been changing for decades and very few have adjusted or even noticed. Whether you agree with the causes of climate change it is hard to deny that weather is different than it was even 50 years ago. Regardless of the driving forces, it is impossible not to recognize that equity compensation is delivering different results than it was when it became the major currency of tech startups in the 1980s and 1990s.