Is the Salary Really Greener on the Other Side of the Fence?

The right and wrong reasons to go from non-exempt to exempt

As a department head and an HR professional, one of the most frustrating, yet all too common questions I’ve gotten from managers is the casual request to switch one of their employees from hourly (non-exempt) to salaried (exempt).

Although often used interchangeably, “salaried” and “exempt” are not the same thing, just as “hourly” and “non-exempt” are not the same. For the purposes of this example, the terms will be used to convey the common concepts – a more detailed clarification appears at the end of the article.

Now, many managers (even many reading this) don’t understand why that simple request could lead to a frustrating exchange with human resources (“… isn’t there just a form or something? …a payroll switch to click?) Of course, management pros know exactly where this dialogue is headed.

Imagine the conversation goes something like this… 

Team Supervisor: Hey, you got a minute?
Human Resources: Sure, have a seat.
TS: (remaining standing) I just wanted to put in for Diane to go from hourly to salary. What do I need to do to make that happen?
HR: Oh ... are you promoting her to that floor manager job?
TS: No, no. We’re actually putting that on hold. I just want to make her salaried.
HR: Oh, so she’s taken on more responsibilities? Tell me about her new scope of work…
TS: No, no, no. Same job, I just want to change her classification.
HR: I don’t understand. If you didn’t change her job and you didn’t change her scope of work or responsibilities, what’s prompting the need to change her pay classification?
TS: Well, I’m just tired of trying to work around the over-time thing. Our department is really busy right now but if I let her work over-time, we go over budget. If I make her go home, we get behind. She’s willing to put in the extra hours, I just can’t afford the extra pay. So if we make her salaried – problem solved, right?
HR: Well...

Plagued by "They" and "Everyone"

The Exponential Growth of Gossip

I recently watched an old program I had recorded years ago and got a good chuckle out of these 2009 Chevy commercials with Howie Long that I have a love-hate appreciation for. If you don’t remember these “They” and “Everyone” parodies, do play they to refresh your memory (they're at least worth the laugh).

 













I love these (and hate them) because they are so representative of society at large and the contagious nature of misinformation … especially bad or negative misinformation. The average workplace is all too often plagued by this “They” and “Everyone” virus.

One person will have a problem with a new policy or idea that management puts out (something that 95% of the staff are happy with or at least neutral about) and somehow this one person’s water-cooler complaining turns into a panicked manager sitting in the boss’s office bringing forward “concerns” that “everyone” is upset about this new change and “they” are all complaining about it.

Confidentiality in the Workplace

Avoiding liability before, during, and after employment

The topic of confidentiality is always one of great interest, controversy and confusion.  In 2007, I wrote a three-part series on Workplace Confidentiality for Parks & Recreation but recent court decisions are worthy of renewed attention.

The cliché “loose lips sink ships” is a bit ironic, if you think about it. The overstatement aside, equating the legal disaster of breaching a confidentiality with the human disaster of the Titanic, it was actually the failure to disclose information that led to the sinking of the Titanic. Just as ironic, there are also workplace situations where not disclosing a (perceived) confidentiality could also create a legal liability.

Knowing what you can’t disclose, can disclose, and must disclose is important for every manager. In the last 15 years, an increasing number of high courts are affirming that importance through their judgments against organizations and individual managers for disclosure-related employment violations.

Wait – back up – did you say individual managers are being sued?

YES! A disgruntled employee may initially go after the company, but if the company can demonstrate clear and well communicated policies specifying the manager’s responsibilities to maintain confidentialities, yet the manager disregarded them, the attorney will turn their attentions to the individual manager. Most companies do have EPLI (liability) policies, but they won’t extend protections to a non-executive named in a suit – the named manager (and their assets) are hung out to dry. You may be in the right, but you don’t have to be wrong to be sued. Even if you win, you lose if it cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself.

Rather than alarming you, let’s focus on arming you with strong management practices that will keep you from sinking in to the treacherous cold waters of liability.

Wait! Stop! Don't Go! (Unabridged)

Identifying the right strategies to hold on to the right employees for the right reasons 
W W W . N R P A . O R G    |    J U N E   2 0 1 4    |    Parks & Recreation
For nearly a decade in the early part of my career I worked for a prominent executive recruiting/ consulting firm. During my first week on the job, I remember the Director explaining the firm’s clientele standards by saying, “if they’ve had more than three jobs in twenty years, just file their resume in the trash.” He was of the Baby Boomer generation so he viewed longevity as a badge of honor if not its own measure of career success.

Retention Evolution

Fast forward a few decades - Forbes publishes an article in 2012 declaring that Job Hopping is the New Normal and the entire definition and expectations of employee retention has been upended. By a Millennial’s assessment, a resume with only three jobs in twenty years probably wouldn’t signify dedication, depth and perseverance but rather a deficit of skill, will or creativity.

In 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average job-stay had devolved to 4.4 years. Just two years later, current reports suggest that the tenure of the teens and young adults entering the workforce today will actually be about half that. That could amount to more than twenty employers in a single career! Organizations still trying to measure their workforce successes by Boomer retention standards will need to brace themselves for frequent frustration if not disappointment and defeat.

Micromanagement (Part Three)

It’s not me…. It’s you! 

W W W . N R P A . O R G   |   J A N U A R Y   2 0 1 4   |   Parks & Recreation

If you’ve followed along with Part One and Part Two of this mini-series, then you understand the difference between effective, directive management and true, debilitating micromanagement. If you’ve been under the thumb of a micromanager, then you now have a solid 7-step action plan to neutralize those micromanaging ways by managing up.

But what if the problem is you? If you’re reading this article because it’s been torn out and slipped under your office door, resist the urge to crumple and toss it. You may not be a true micromanager (refer back to Part One), but some minor adjustments may ease the misplaced perception of this lone, desperate employee who is simply eager to have a better, more productive relationship with you. So while your employee works on his or her skills to manage up, perhaps you could refresh your skills to manage right.

Managing Right

There’s a fading sign on my office door that says “Encourage, Empower, Expect.” It’s one of my favorite management mantras because it’s simple yet on target. To be complete, however, it needs three more Es— Engage, Equip and Entrust. Although our emphasis is on replacing those micromanaging practices with more effective ones, these six Es are an easy way for any manager to remember the basics of effective management.

Micromanagement (Part Two)

Neutralizing the micromanager — the one you work for, or the one inside you

W W W . N R P A . O R G   |   D E C E M B E R   2 0 1 3   |   Parks & Recreation

No matter how outstanding the organization, resources or team, a manager’s style can make or break its success. As discussed in “Micromanagement (Part One)” (http://www.managingmanagement.us/2013/11/micromanagement-part-one.html), a micromanager can inadvertently breed lack of engagement, low morale and poor productivity for both staff and the organization.

If employees feel that they are not trusted to do the job they were hired for or that their experience and knowledge are constantly being dismissed and or trumped by their manager’s actions, eventually those employees will stop taking initiative or making decisions. The most organized, deadline-driven employee will suddenly seem to procrastinate — after all, what’s the point of completing a projector task in a timely manner when history indicates the micromanaging boss will take it over or assert a different direction before the employee is done anyway? Or worse, the boss will discard a completed work and redo the whole thing him- or herself.

If the descriptions above seem all too familiar, you may be one of the frustrated and disengaged, wondering why you keep coming back each day. Oh, wait…right — you love this job. You don’t want to leave; you just wish you could get your boss to change his or her destructive ways.

From "One of the Guys" to "The Man"

Making a smooth transition from peer to boss

If you’re like the average American who reportedly works 50 or more hours a week, then you’re probably also like the one-third of surveyed American workers who said they meet the majority of their friends at work. Your shared experiences – good and bad - create a natural bond. People who work with friends report higher levels of job satisfaction, productivity and engagement. Higher levels of engagement increase the average length of stay at an organization. When you enjoy the people you work with, you naturally want to keep working with them. But what happens when it’s time to move up in your career?

You’re ready for that next step up the ladder -- are your work friends?  If you should get the opportunity to move up in your own organization (and don’t have to leave to achieve advancement), your friendships will be different. Period. "The dynamics completely change, “ says Robert Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss. "People start to watch you more than ever before." Michael Watkins, author of Your Next Move says that being promoted to a position that manages your former peers, "combines the challenges of any promotion with the additional challenge of people having to recalibrate their relationship with you."

When you are promoted to be their supervisor, you can’t just abandon your work friends, but how you handle the transition from buddy to boss may determine if they abandon you. Here are some steps you can take to clear a few common hurdles with grace.

1.     Acknowledge the elephant in the room – There are going to be more than a few awkward moments. Be candid about it. Tell your team that you expect those clumsy uncomfortable moments to happen and give them permission to call you out, let them know you’ll be doing the same. Invite them to give you feedback on what they think a good transition would look like and how to make that happen. You will get some great insight into what they need from you as a supervisor and they will appreciate the fact that you even asked.

2.     Redefine and reintroduce yourself – It’s important to establish early on what your new role is… and isn’t. If you’re carrying over some responsibilities from your previous position, it may delay or muddy their recognition of you as “boss” rather than their regular co-worker. On the flip-side, if you are retaining none of your old responsibilities and this new management role is completely different from the expertise and competencies you’ve already established with them as a peer, be prepared that you may have to “prove yourself” to them all over again as skilled and competent as their manager too.  Part of this reintroduction should include communicating your expectations of how you all will work together and of setting boundaries for what can no longer be a part of your dynamic.

·       Boundaries.  There are some conversations that used to be commonplace that just aren’t going to happen anymore. Both you and they know this. But the clearer you can be about which ones and why, the easier it will be to maintain the conversations you DO want to keep having and not feel like you’ve just cut each other out completely.

-   Grumbling about management. When the urge to gripe strikes, it may take them a while to remember that you ARE management. When you were “one of the guys” you might all complain to each other about a decision or policy made by “the man”, but now that you are “the man”, your first duty is to the company, not your friends. You should let them know up front that you do want to hear from them if they have concerns or complaints but that you won’t be engaging in (or condoning) a gripe-fest. Telling them that upfront will save you and them from misunderstandings later when you have to cut them off and remind them your role is different now.

It’s also a good idea to just warn them now that some of their complaints will be met with your validation and explanation of those policies or decisions and not an agreement as they might have expected.  Your job as manager is to support organizational decisions and help your employees to do the same. If you don’t have a good answer for why the company made the decision it did (whether you really agreed with it or not), you need affirm for them that they have offered reasonable feedback and questions and that you’ll have to ask a few more yourself to help everyone understand the new direction.  If you do, in fact, have issue with something going on, the group to seek feedback from (or commiserate with) is your NEW peer group, the other managers.

-   Confidential Information. There are pitfalls to privilege. You will be privy to management level information that is not appropriate to share or discuss and all of you know this. Ask your team up front not to pry or pressure you into discussing things with them that all sides know are not appropriate (coworker’s wages, why someone was let go, who’s getting the promotion, if layoffs are coming, etc.). You’ll probably have to remind them (and catch yourself) from time to time, but it’s going to come up. Just call it out with the other elephant.

A less obvious breech may start with the conversations that you’ve had for years that, as peers, were based on common observations combined with personal opinion but now are no longer appropriate. Example: you and Judy would frequently share your frustration with Fred’s constant early exits, late arrivals and unplanned days off and lament about the impact it has on the rest of the team. You’d ask each other why “management” was so oblivious or elected to ignore it. Now that both Judy and Fred are reporting to you, you may have more context as to why Fred seems to come and go and miss more work than the average employee. Let’s say Fred has an ADA accommodation or is taking protected intermittent leave under FMLA. You cannot disclose those things to Judy. So when Judy complains to you that Fred’s missed another deadline and it’s putting her behind, you can’t make excuses for Fred and you can’t tell Judy why it continues to be accepted from him and not others. Welcome to management! Thank Judy for letting you know and assure her that you’ll extend her deadline because of Fred’s delay. You’ll have a separate conversation with Fred about his own deadlines but you can’t discuss one employee’s performance with another employee, no matter how obvious and observable.

3.     Watch out for favoritism or over-compensation – You may already be watching that you don’t give the best assignments or the highest scores to those one or two people on your team who were your friends before you were promoted. Believe me, you aren’t watching nearly as closely as the other people on your team. On the other hand, you want to make sure you don’t lean too far in the other direction either and over compensate for that friendship by being tougher on them than everyone else. You’ve got to strike a balance and distance yourself a bit to gain objectivity. When possible, rely on existing policies and processes to level the playing field (i.e. when two people ask for the same week of vacation, who, according to policy, gets preference? Seniority? First come, first serve?).

4.     Give it and Get it – Remember the reason you were promoted in the first place and give to your team the proper supervision and leadership they need and expect. If this is your first time supervising, don’t expect yourself to intuitively “just know” what to do in every situation. Get some training, read some books and rely on your new peer group – other managers. But also remember to get the supervision you need from your own boss. You can’t be expected to be perfect and self-sufficient on day-one and your boss is a good resource to coach you through situation and ensure they handled the way he or she would have preferred.

Supervisors and managers can make or break a company. Employees will walk away from extraordinary pay, doing a job they love because of a bad boss. Employees will also stick with a so-so job, making so-so pay, because of a great boss. What makes a great boss? Being their “friend” did not make the list. Employees want their boss to set clear expectations and goals, to recognize accomplishments, to have open communication, to provide growth opportunities, to be someone they can trust and respect and to have enough trust in them to empower them to do their job. Maintaining their friendships won’t accomplish any of those things. Of course, it would be hard to be successful at any of those things if you aren’t at least friendly, but that’s different from being their friend.

If you want to step up and take on the responsibility of management, but that move will require supervising your friends and peers, you’ll need to accept that your workplace friends don’t have to become enemies but the relationship will take on completely different characteristics. If you handle the transition well and commit to doing what it takes to be a good boss, those old friends will appreciate you even more, just for different reasons.

Death in the Workplace (Unabridged)

balancing compassion with compliance

In my career, I’ve worked along size many coworkers who were grieving the loss of a loved one. It’s fairly common. Actually, it’s unavoidable. Death does not care that there’s a big meeting next week or that the tickets for the family vacation are already paid in full (and non-refundable) – death happens.

For a manager, it’s often awkward and uncomfortable trying to balance the sensitivity to an employee’s grieving process with the reality that there are still expectations that must be met.  Keep in mind, however, that the employee is keenly aware and just as uncomfortable with those competing concerns, but they have the added stress of dealing with the personal loss as well.

Not quite as common is when the workplace grief is due to the death of a co-worker. The questions of what the manager needs to balance goes from two issues to six:

• How do you deal with the feelings of loss that the other employees may be experiencing?
• With several (if not all) of the staff experiencing some level of grief, how severe will the impact be on the business operations?
• How will employees deal with the disruption of business operations and potentially increased workload?
• What is the best way for the manager or organization to express compassion to the deceased employee’s family during this time?
• Are there legal or logistic issues the manger is responsible for? (and last, but certainly not least)
• How are YOU coping with the loss?

We spend as many or more waking hours with our coworkers than with our closest friends or, in some cases, even our family. It’s important not to under estimate the emotional impact that the death of a coworker can have on staff and the business. Most companies have bereavement policies that give an employee anywhere from 1 to 5 days of paid leave for the death of a family member. But when few will extend beyond blood relatives to even include close friends, fewer still (none I’ve experienced) will include language or scenarios about time off to deal with the grief associated with a workplace death. 

The reality is, while it may very well be an emotional necessity to give the staff a few days off, business necessities will likely make that impossible. Rather than trying to create a policy that covers every unpredictable variable in that situation, work with other managers to come up with a preparedness checklist that will guide you through certain steps that you should take and prompt a dialog to help you make decisions about how your organization wants to respond in certain situations ahead of time. The following lists are not all inclusive but should give you a starting place to begin building your workplace death preparedness checklist.

Initial Communication and Response

• Know your organization's policy on bereavement and personal time and be ready to explain the policy to the employee. Have the contact/policy information for you company EAP on hand (attach handouts or summaries of each to this preparedness checklist)
• As soon as possible after you learn of the loss, notify Human Resources and inform those with the most critical need to know first and then communicate to employees
• Expect sadness and tears. Extend the offer for counseling for employees through the EAP
• Respect the confidentiality the deceased’s personal or medical information unless permission has been given by the family to share it. Be sure to ask the family explicitly what can be shared and what is confidential

Keeping Business Moving

• Expect the best from grieving employees, but be prepared to accept less for a short time
• As work shifts to other employees, remember to thank those employees for taking on the additional work
• Ask what you can do to help: Time off? Schedule adjustment? Help with the extra work?
• Ensure that phone calls, voicemails, e-mail messages and other communications are intercepted re-directed appropriately
• Contact direct relationship of the deceased and reassign them to others;

Making Arrangements and Preparing for Services:

• As sensitively as possible ask the family for a single contact person who can provide funeral details, answer questions about the arrangements and be the designee  benefits procedures when it’s time for paperwork to be completed
• Designate a single internal contact person (likely HR) for employees to go to with questions or concerns about arrangement to prevent employees from trying to contact the family directly
• Help organize a group acknowledgment for the family (a group card, flowers, group attendance at the funeral, etc.).
• Determine where flowers or other preferred offerings are to be sent as consistent with the  family’s wishes; communicate to employees as appropriate;
• Considering the impact on business, recognize that many employees may feel a need to attend the services and be as flexible as possible;

Following the Funeral:

• Check with Human Resources on your state law regarding final pay for deceased employees and provide them with whatever necessary to calculate final pay and close out benefits
• Follow the normal termination checklist to ensure equipment, keys, credit cards, etc. are accounted for and security issues are addressed
• Ask family how they want to retrieve/receive the personal belongings of their loved one; offer to do it for them. The family may not want to be involved
• Keep in touch with family as appropriate.

Just thinking about each of those questions can be overwhelming enough in the hypothetical. When the situation becomes real, being prepared will give you a sense of control when you’ll need it most.  

Web only special:

You know that you’re supposed to say or write something thoughtful, yet business-appropriate to the grieving family of your recently departed staff member but finding those words can be challenging. While personalization is important, here is a sample letter that can guide you through the right sentiment.

Dear ________________:

The news of Parker’s death found us unprepared for the loss of a valued colleague. The business relationship and personal friendship many of us had with Parker have been a pleasure and source of enrichment to all of us. We shall miss Parker greatly.

Parker was held in the highest regard by our employees and by others in our industry. Parker set an example that will continue to be an inspiration to us all. Please accept our sincere sympathy for your loss.

Sometime soon your family will receive benefit information, forms and other paperwork to facilitate closure around Parker’s job with us. In the meantime, please call me if you have any questions or if we may be of assistance.

Sincerely,

(name and title)