Getting to the real problem

Ailment
A Vice President of human resources was convinced the compensation processes for his company were awry. “Why can’t people just get their increases?” An HR Director called us in.

In a half-day fixed fee session, Commonwealth HR Consulting (CHRC) listened to the Vice President’s concerns. We learned that the company had not conducted market pricing in three years, the compensation manager had insisted a market study be done, and in fact, appropriate time had been spent on a thorough analysis.  

Diagnosis
In conversation it emerged that the boss was a high potential executive placed in HR as a developmental role. He had no previous human resources experience. A strategic marketer, he could not understand the delay in “just getting people their raises.”

Cure
After assessing the situation and supporting the manager’s due diligence, CHRC brought the Vice President and Manager’s relationship back to health by:

  • Translating data from the manager’s internal compensation analysis (dozens of columns on multiple spreadsheets) arriving at strategic compensation recommendations
  • Educating the vice president of human resources about his department’s duties and responsibilities
  • Verifying the compensation manager’s actions and elapsed time on her analysis
  • Recommending future formats for the VP’s consumption
  • Saving the compensation manager’s job