Pay Employees What THEY Want.

I recall hearing years ago about a small organization where the owner was tired of dealing with people complaining about their salaries, so he told everyone in the organization to set their own salaries.  He told employees that they could go into payroll and set their salary at the level they feel they are worth.  Here's what happened.

• One person walked in and gave himself a small raise, just to see what would happen.  It was accepted and the new pay level showed up on his next paycheque. 
• Another took a pay cut as she just didn't want to work that hard and felt a huge stress release of not having to live up to the expectations of the higher salary.
• Finally, one person, who was not a great performer, took a significant raise.  However, once his salary was set at a level of what he thought he was worth, his level of performance improved significantly.

I think you will enjoy these thoughts in this article about setting salaries during the interview process.

http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/hiring-compensation-pay-employees-what-they-ask-for.html

I welcome your comments.

2012 Compensation Increases in Canada

The link below is a summary report of expected Compensation Increases in Canada for 2012.  Although during these tough times, increases in base pay in many corporations have been low or non-existant (wage freezes), it is interesting to note that companies are increasing their salary structures by less than 2%.  However, likely due to limited increases in the past few years, salary increases on base pay are expected to be in the 3% range for all levels of the organization.  I see this as a leading indicator that companies are getting concerned about their ability to attract and retain employees, as the struggle to get employees becomes stronger and stronger.  This can be seen as a warning sign that companies should look deeply at their retention strategies.

http://www.cpq.qc.ca/assets/files/divers/2011/previsions-salariales2012_en.pdf