Variable Incentive Plans: A Motivation & Retention tool

By: Tushar Bhatia
Date: April 6th, 2010

Variable Incentive Plans Since the past two years Variable Incentives did not work very well since most employees wanted the security of a high base-pay and meeting targets was largely unpredictable. The economy is on an up-swing again and employers & employees see new opportunities for increasing incomes.

Organizations want to curtail their fixed costs, hence salaries may not increase dramatically and immediately, but Variable Incentive Plans are coming to the fore to retain high-performers and encourage achievement.

As soon as we think of Variable Incentives, our thought goes to the employees in the sales department, but in my recent research I have found that each employee, irrespective of their department can be included in the company Variable Incentive Plan. Although the goals, their relative importance and the expected achievements may vary across job roles. The rest of this article explores the various categories of Incentives that can be applied to employees in different job roles and how HR can use this tool to motivate and retain employees across the entire company. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Compensation Planning, Employee Rewards, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Payroll, Performance Management | 22 Comments »

High Performance Companies Focus on Performance Management

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: December 31st, 2009

We often listen from the successful business leaders that “People are our strength”. Recently I read the book “The High Performance Entrepreneur” written by Subroto Baghchi. He is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Mindtree Consulting, one of India’s most admired software companies.

Mindtree has grown from 0 to 3500 people and crossed $ 102 Million in revenue, all in six years, making it one of the highest performing companies in India.

Based on Subroto’s personal experiences, the book is all about entrepreneurship and how an organization can achieve high growth. Being involved in development and implementation of Performance Management Systems, one paragraph caught my attention. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Employee Appraisals, Employee Rewards | 5 Comments »

Post-Recession Challenges of Talent Management

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: October 12th, 2009

Recovering Economies

After a year or so the news on recession is taking a U-turn (not a V-turn though). Officially, analysts are reporting that recession is over, including Google CEO. While it will take some time for recession to pave the way for prosperity and growth for business in general, the prosperity is already on its way to certain economies such as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

HR May be Caught Off Guard

Although this is good news for business operations, including marketing and sales, it poses new challenges for human capital. Businesses would no longer run on the old rules, but new out-of-the-box solutions, more comprehensive efforts, innovative thinking, and new skills and competencies would be required to grow and prosper. Needless to say, the demand for both the quantity and the quality of talented employees will grow worldwide. Companies that have fired employees in the past are already feeling the pinch, as they do not have enough bandwidth to execute.

Bloggers like Jon Ingham, who champion the cause of Human Capital Management, are being invited to speak on performance management. The need for performance management is pressing. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Compensation Planning, Economy, Employee Appraisals, Employee Rewards, Performance Management | 19 Comments »

Do your rewards motivate or else!

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: December 4th, 2008

During one of my conversation with a CEO of a start-up company the discussion turned towards Compensation Planning to motivate employees, especially the talented ones. It was agreed that the most talented ones need a continuous motivation to maintain their momentum. During the discussion, the CEO narrated one of his bad experiences about one of his talented employees, whom he admired, wanted to reward, motivate and compensate appropriately.

Tom worked with John, the CEO of the company, and was a very talented employee who worked diligently. John being happy with the Tom’s work, rewarded him with a cash prize of $ 1000 (which was a significant amount ), in anticipation that Tom will be motivated to perform better. He also had lots of plans for Tom in the back of his mind. Both Tom and John seemed happy and thought that they did a good job.

Contrary to John’s belief Tom submitted his resignation within a much shorter span. During his exit interview, Tom did not state any specific reason for his resignation too (although, it was found later that he left for a better compensation package). His resignation came as a shock to John, who was genuinely interested in retaining good employees and did all what he could do to ensure it.