Incentive Pay

Employers still giving raises, mostly to high performers

08/30/2010

U.S. employers will hand out pay raises averaging 2.5% across all employee categories in 2010, according to the annual WorldatWork 2010-2011 Salary Budget Survey. But in most cases, the size of the raise will depend on how well employees have performed. Employers “are no longer averse to withholding merit increases for poor performers so they can afford to grant meaningful increases to better performers,” says Anne C. Ruddy, president of WorldatWork.

5 steps for starting a pay-for-performance system

08/24/2010

Most organizations believe they do pay for performance. They don’t. If you’re committed to starting a true pay-for-performance system, you’ll want to ease into it with lots of crystal-clear communication. Here are five ways to get started.

Case appears headed for court? See if union contract requires arbitration instead

07/15/2010

There’s at least one upside to having a unionized workforce: Employees who have disagreements over pay or benefits generally have to use the arbitration process authorized in the union contract to pursue their claims. Your collective-bargaining agreement can save employers from expensive trips to the federal courts.

How should we calculate OT when paying bonuses based on previous performance?

06/24/2010

Q. Our company pays monthly bonuses to hourly employees based on the previous month’s performance. When calculating overtime, should the bonus pay be included only for the weekly payroll that contains those bonuses, or does it change the overtime rate for other weekly pay periods as well?

New tool when employees defect to competition: bonus forfeiture

06/14/2010

Employers looking to discourage their employees from going to work for a competitor, take note! As a general matter, courts aren’t in favor of noncompete agreements. Nevertheless, Illinois employers may now have a new weapon to keep employees from taking your secrets when they leave.

Court tossed class-action suit? Your legal worries aren’t over yet

06/14/2010

Here’s more incentive to pay close attention to your compensation practices: Wage-and-hour lawsuits can easily morph into collective actions in which a few employees represent all similarly situated employees. Even if an employer manages to persuade the court that the claims aren’t suitable for a collective action, that doesn’t mean the case is over.

Back-to-basics manager: Good for the bottom line

05/26/2010

If you want your organization’s employees to work more productively, pay more attention to them. During the economic crisis of 2009, the most effective business strategy turned out to be increased supervision and management of employees. Research by RainmakerThinking shows that organizations that combined three effective strategies during the recession had better financial results than others:

OK to base pay on performance–without bias

05/11/2010

If you’re thinking about switching to a production-based compensation system that pays more to the most productive employees, don’t worry too much about the plan’s possible disparate impact on some groups. As long as you don’t use the system to discriminate against a particular group—or favor another—courts are unlikely to conclude that any uneven results were caused by discrimination.

The HR I.Q. Test: March ’10

03/10/2010

Test your knowledge of recent trends in employment law, comp & benefits and other HR issues with our monthly mini-quiz …

Try 2 bonus tactics suited for tough times

02/12/2010

After two years of painful payroll reductions, there’s enough light at the end of the recessionary tunnel for some employers to begin considering pay raises. But in a volatile economy, implementing performance incentives and bonus plans is easier said than done. Experts say two tactics can help HR pros create variable pay plans that strike a balance between risk, reward and fiscal stability.