Learning a Lesson in Retention
A little over one year ago I instituted a new salary/promotion structure that upgraded our office in a couple of ways. First, it brought our salary to a competitive level. Secondly, it created a promotion structure whereas prior to that the only way to get a promotion was to get a job somewhere else and consider that a promotion.
During that process of creating and implementing, someone made the statement that we would need to amend the policy in the future. At that time I thought they were talking about increasing the salary to meet inflationary rates or cost-of-living adjustments. It turns out that they weren't talking about that at all.
No matter how sure you are that your policy is the perfect one, it probably has flaws. If there appears to be no flaws at the time of implementation, changes in people and environment will expose them. I'm calling that the 'Hitchcock Theory of Policy Perfection'.
Recently several employees came to me and complained that they were qualified for promotion under the policy and therefore should receive their due. It took me a minute to recover the first time, but I pointed out that in order for the promotion to occur there must be a 'need' for the promotion, as determined by the managers. After I said this, I realized how much hoopla that sounded like. To them it must have sounded as if I said, "I'll promote you when I darn well feel like it."
Of course there's some truth to that statement, but it isn't really a 'feeling', it is a detailed understanding of capabilities versus performance. But the fact is there must be a need. I researched my policy and realized that I didn't really define that 'need' at all. After this blew up into an HR cluster of confusion, my supervisor suggested that we institute a quota; so many promotions per year. I added that this might help but that management has to have the authority to over-ride any quota in the event that the need arises (there it is again...poorly defined 'need'....but in this case I think it means a bus accident kills some of our previously promoted people leaving a vacuum somewhere). All agreed so now I have to re-write this policy.
One of the partners noted to me that he 'felt as if our promotion policy was a mistake' because of these recent developments. I reminded everyone that we expected this and even talked about it a year ago. Then I pointed out that the policy certainly achieved the two goals that it was designed to achieve: to retain great employees and to improve overall departmental performance. In my opinion those two achievements blow this silly hiccup out of the water.
So now I must amend the policy, just as someone predicted a year ago. This time I won't have a little voice in the back of my head telling me how great I am to have come up with a perfect policy that will endure until the last trump. This time I understand that I will probably be doing some more revisions within a year or so, and I'll take it in stride.
Lesson Learned. MJH
