Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently
brought in Jacqueline
Reses as a new EVP. A veteran of private equity firms, high tech and Goldman Sachs, Reses is as
high-powered an executive as you can find. What does Yahoo plan to do with
their new rock star? She will focus her energies on leading human resources and
talent management.
Since we happen to be talent
management experts, we thought we would share what we think that Reses, as well
as leaders at other companies, need to know before taking on the task. PayScale’s 2012 Compensation
Best Practices report reveals that, for the first time ever, executives’ number one HR concern is
retention. With wages
climbing and competition for talent increasing, retention is a great place to start.
Before you rush off and devise
efforts to raise your total retention rate, read on to learn about how
retention is more complicated than it used to be. Compensation is still the
key, but you need to be thoughtful and use the right data in your decisions.
Compensation
Moves into the Fast Lane
If you are making choices based on months-old data from
traditional surveys, you will be in for a shock. Compensation now moves at the
speed of business, which means it changes daily, not yearly. To make your
compensation decisions, which directly impact retention, you need the kind of
real time, fresh data that PayScale provides.
Jobs
are More Specialized
Not too long ago, you could easily
categorize a particular employee with simple job labels. Today, both people and
jobs are highly specialized. A number of factors, including geography,
training, certifications, market trends and performance need to be included in
the calculation. Use data that includes these variables, so that you are able
to set compensation appropriately.
Target
Your Retention
Even if you have and use the right
data, your retention efforts will be for naught if you fail to reward the right
factors. You retain high-performers, the employees that drive business success,
by implementing pay-for-performance programs like merit raises. You drive away
your top performing employees by relying on equity-driven approaches like
across the board cost of living adjustments. That said, sometimes you will want
to boost employee engagement across the board. If you can do it while boosting
productivity, as Mayer just did by giving every employee a smart phone, so much the better.
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