Good Management Skills for Earning More

HR Knows: Managers Who Set Pay Are Paid More See if the following fact surprises you: PayScale data shows the management responsibility that most improves salaries is the responsibility to set pay for employees. Shocked, doubtful or nodding your head and thinking, “I already knew that”?

June 16, 2011

HR Knows: Managers Who Set Pay Are Paid More

See if the following fact surprises you: PayScale data shows the management responsibility that most improves salaries is the responsibility to set pay for employees. Shocked, doubtful or nodding your head and thinking, “I already knew that”?

As someone who talks to HR professionals all day, one fact stands out to me: those of us in Human Resources know our people and whether they are paid appropriately for their contributions to the company. So, when one of our data analysts asked me, “What do you think affects pay the most when it comes to management responsibilities?” I responded, “Managers who set pay.” He looked surprised and asked, “Was that just a guess?” I said, “All Human Resources people know this. It’s part of the landscape for us.”

The Value of Management Responsibilities

Here’s what PayScale’s discovered. We analyzed the effect on pay, on average, of six different management tasks. We did not look at a particular industry or experience level. We look at all types of managers of all experience levels and areas of specialty. It turns out that, on average, if you add the responsibility of setting pay to your job description, you be most likely able to earn more in base salary than if you added different responsibility.

Management Tasks Ranked by Effect on Pay

Set pay
Promote employees
Hire and fire employees
Review employee performance annually
Mentor/advise or assign/evaluate work
Oversee employees

Our Seat at The Table

I recently attended my local SHRM chapter’s annual strategic HR symposium. One of the things that became clear to me is that understanding compensation and what affects pay in an organization is one of the best ways that HR people can contribute to their organization. We, as HR leaders, need to understand that we can make the most difference as “a business leader who specializes.” Our seat at the table is directly related to the value that we add. And to me, our most important addition is compensation – it affects everyone in the company. After all, there’s a reason why we call it “human capital.”

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Regards,

Nancy Kasmar, CCP, SPHR
Implementation Support Manager
PayScale, Inc.

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