I want to invite you to register for Brilliant HR’s upcoming webinar: How to Get Executive Buy-in for a Compensation Solution, on Thursday January 30, 2020 at 1:00 PM EST.
We are very excited to present to you some compelling reasons to present to your C-suite audience why a compensation solution is a brilliant investment.
Here’s one: The first 50 attendees registered will be entered to win 1 year of Brilliant HR’s compensation solution FREE!
Our Client Spotlight series features casual, interview style conversations with current Brilliant HR clients to share best practices learned firsthand through their experience with Brilliant HR software. This Spotlight features Corey Gilchrist, Director of Compensation and HRMS at Shamrock Foods Group.
Key Takeaways
Effectively introducing Brilliant HR’s Compensation tool and best practices
Building relationships to cultivate employee loyalty
Personal experiences showing the value of having a thorough compensation practice at your organization
As financial professionals, our HR counterparts are the most important allies we could possibly have. They should be our strategic planning partners and our confidants. So why don’t we team up more often? In the majority of cases, I think it’s because of how we work. Fractured systems isolate us professionally, making it difficult to understand the points of synergy between our two worlds. During my years in finance, I didn’t understand the value of human capital because it wasn’t something I could capture on a balance sheet. There is no generally accepted accounting principal to assign monetary value to talent, but the intrinsic value is there, just the same.
A growing demand to track Human Capital Management (HCM) metrics is putting pressure on already burdened HR professionals. Digital HCM is the future of HR and promises to become the strategic keystone we need. So why are we so slow to embrace it? Many companies are still struggling to manually piece together information from payroll, finance, and even sales in order to extract sophisticated insights from data. Unlike most HR professionals, those of us in Finance are already accustomed to this type of analytical work. We’ve been forced to leverage technology to track and benchmark metrics far longer than our friends in HR. We’re familiar with the challenges of disparate systems and what it takes to build bridges between human capital management (HCM) and financial ERP solutions. Think of the possibilities.
Establish HCM as an integral part of the business
As the finance leader in your organization, you are typically included in strategic planning activities. If you haven’t already invited your HR counterparts to the table, I encourage you to do so now. They could be one of your most strategic partners as they understand the value of your firm’s workforce and how to increase that value through thoughtful investment.
Below are 5 ways finance can (and should) partner with HR:
1. Establish a Human Capital Management Strategy
Encourage your firm’s leaders to establish human capital management as a strategic function and recognize that they are a valuable, untapped resource. Focus on how to grow the business organically by tapping into the productivity that results from a highly engaged workforce. Attracting, developing, and optimizing great people will help your firm lead the industry with high performing teams. 2. Create an HR Technology Roadmap
For most firms, the road to a fully integrated HR technology solution is just the beginning. Prepare your firm for the total investment in terms of budget and time. Create a roadmap to help all stakeholders in your firm understand what it will take to successfully craft and implement a digital human capital management strategy. 3. Integrate HR and ERP technology
The integration of these two technologies is a must for any strategic HR roadmap. Integrating critical business functions is the only way to get the analytics required to optimize your workforce. Integration will allow employee information to be pushed into the ERP system to facilitate the project lifecycle. Critical data around time and attendance, employee expense reports, and employees will be able to move between systems and streamline the allocation of costs to projects, improve resource planning, and automate payroll. 4. Enable Collaboration
Be sure to include collaboration tools in your HR technology roadmap. Project work is often spread across locations and teams, making it necessary to have tools in place that enable dispersed teams to communicate and work together. Collaboration tools can also help to identify disengaged employees faster and ramp new employees more quickly. 5. Choose a Partner
Software was once something that we bought and used. Today, when you choose a tool, you are also choosing a partner. Spending time evaluating features and functionality is not enough. Chose a partner that understands project-based firms and your unique challenges. Make sure they have made the right investments in solutions for your industry and aligned with your needs.
Although on the surface the goals of Finance and HR may appear different; they are much more aligned than most of us realize. We both want to be able to analyze, manage, and optimize the workforce in order to predict future needs, improve utilization and grow profitability. It’s time to recognize this and come together with a mutual understanding of how so much untapped value is lying dormant in our organizations. It’s hard to quantify, you can’t report it in your financial statements, but people are our greatest asset and the true source of our organization’s value.
French companies caught discriminating against women over pay will be given three years to close the gap or face fines under new labour proposals.
The government revealed the planned crackdown to unions and employers on Wednesday, giving them a month to iron out details.
If passed by parliament, the measure will be rolled out by 2020.
Men are still paid on average 9% more than women in France despite equal pay laws going back 45 years.
The measure is part of a social reform bill due to be presented to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s cabinet at the end of next month.
Six ways to tackle the gender pay gap
What is the gender pay gap?
“The crazy thing is that it all exists in law but equality is missing in practice,” said Mr Philippe.
“Our aim is to pass from fine words to true, genuine equality.”
How would the new measure work?
Special software would be installed on company payroll systems to monitor unjustified pay gaps.
Larger firms – those employing at least 250 staff – would get the new software next year while firms employing between 50 and 249 staff would be affected from 2020.
The new system would be launched in 2022 and there would be four times the current number of spot checks.
Those firms which failed to address unfair pay gaps within three years of a warning could be fined up to 1% of their wage bill.
How do other countries compare?
Across the 28 EU member states, the average “unexplained” gender pay gap is a little higher than France’s at 11.5%, according to Eurostat figures.
Neighbouring Belgium has a gap of just 2.5% whereas for women in Lithuania, it is a staggering 24.2%.
Here at Brilliant HR, we are frequently asked complicated questions surrounding employee compensation. Questions like, “what are the best practices for asking a candidate’s current salary?” or “is it appropriate to bring up compensation during an interview?Compensation can be a tumultuous terrain, and there are few definitive answers available for candidates and Hiring Managers. Through our research on the topic, we discovered varying inconclusive results.. While one article concluded that an applicant should not give up any salary information, and stick solely to “ranges” and “current market salaries” when interviewing for a new position; the next article stated that candidates should be upfront, direct and honest with what their current salary is and what they hope to earn in their next position..For the recruiter or Hiring Manager, there’s even less information out there;however, with new laws taking effect in many cities and states, — it’s critical for your organization to have a defined set of rules regarding compensation discussion. New York City, Albany County, New Orleans, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts and Philadelphia have all passed ordinances prohibiting employers and employment agencies from doing any of the following:
Screening job applicants based on their current wages and benefits or other compensation or salary history.
Requiring that an applicant’s prior wages satisfy minimum or maximum criteria.
Requesting an applicant’s prior wages or salary history or requiring an applicant to provide that information as a condition of being interviewed or considered for employment.
Seeking the applicant’s salary history from a current or former employer.
Many of these new laws will help bridge the wage gap in the workplace; however, organizations may face greater difficulty in compensation planning and hiring without the knowledge of prior salary information. Learn about our Compensation Tool
So as a recruiter or hiring manager, where does that leave you? This article has some helpful suggestions on ways to handle these new laws.
Remove salary history questions from job applications, including online applications.
If you work with recruiting agencies and background check companies, ask them to exclude salary history inquiries in their process.
Train HR, internal recruiters and other employees who interface with job applicants not to ask about salary/benefits/compensation history, but to explore other permissible areas.
If these individuals are interacting with job applicants and the applicant offers their current/past salary without prompt, be sure your staff makes a note of it, and the circumstances surrounding the disclosure.
Post salaries for jobs on your open requisitions – or salary ranges, which can vary upon experience. This might help attract more qualified candidates!
In conclusion, we are in unchartered territory with the new laws coming in to effect. There is no precedent for how to engage and react – so tread lightly, train your employees to use caution, take notes and document in writing to protect yourself and your company. As a candidate, these rules apply as well. Read up on the latest laws and ensure you are being polite but also firm if someone asks you a question you think might be off limits. If you have any questions on this topic or any other HR compliance topics, contact us!
