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summits
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7-9 March 2010
The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, FL, USA |
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Chuck Johnson Interview
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The heart and soul of any organization, are its employees who influence and shape its growth, success and future. The organization depends on attracting and retaining the right professionals for each position, to give it the competitive edge it needs. At the moment however, many highly competent people are deciding whether to stay with their current employers or move to a new employer with a better value proposition, which is making compensation benefits directors struggle in finding and retaining the employees that could drive growth and recovery. Chuck Johnson, VP, Total Rewards at Pitney Bowes Inc, a speaker at the marcus evans Corporate Benefits Summit Spring 2010 shares his thoughts on the benefits most valuable to employees and long-term strategies for benefits and compensation. In your opinion, what are some of the corporate employee benefits and compensation programs that have proven most successful? Chuck Johnson: Employee benefit programs that attract the right talent and sustain performance, when delivered with immediacy and connected to company performance, are most often the programs with the highest impact. There are some programs that we drive on a regular or annualized basis that we see as important, but the ones that employees respond to most favorably are those that acknowledge performance on a short term basis. We have development or training programs, where someone is put on a short-term assignment for a project, possibly even internationally, that people see as a real opportunity to grow and develop towards their career aspirations, which are highly cherished and prized. What are the benefits most and least valuable to employees? Chuck Johnson: The demographics of employees, such as their age or gender, have a direct influence on value. Someone who is close to retirement age cares more about retirement services and programs, like retirement savings programs, and long-term healthcare, because they are preparing themselves for post retirement. Employees who are in the early stages of their career care more about their pay programs, short-term incentives as well as long-term incentives through stock options, or restricted stock as they build their financial wealth portfolio. They also care more about development opportunities and project assignments as mentioned. There are many different demographics that come into play when trying to make the program successful for any discrete population. One of the challenges for someone in benefits design is that we usually have a fixed amount of resources for a population which has many variables in demand. The challenge is to create the appropriate mix. Because of the current economic conditions, there are less people coming into the workforce today, and they are demanding opportunities to grow and develop in order to stay with the company. The goal is to meet as many of those demands as possible, knowing full well that you are not going to be able to meet all of them. What initiatives to increase productivity and performance would you recommend to benefits directors? Chuck Johnson: One of the things we did recently was a complete revision of the performance management system. For our 35,000 employees worldwide, we had several different performance management systems that measured and paid for performance differently. Today we have one system, that measures performance the same way in every part of the world and there is great value in that. Employees really want to understand two basic things: how they are performing based upon expectations and what their potential is to move forward. The systems you have should be tied together. Assessments for performance, leadership qualities and potential based upon skills and abilities, all have to be fundamentally linked. They have to use the same messaging capability across the company, so that employees really understand where they stand. A discrete requirement, something every organization should focus on, is the management capability to deliver messages to employees on their performance and potential. You must have managers who are equipped in delivering both positive and critical messages to employees, to help them understand how to grow and improve their performance. What is your outlook for 2010? Chuck Johnson: Performance management will continue to be an area of focus for us. Retaining and attracting new talent will continue to be a critical issue – as different global economies begin to shift, becoming less disabled by economic conditions, employees will begin to think about what that means for them. There will be an increased focus on attraction and retention vehicles, because the war for talent will heat up again. It has somewhat been subdued by the current economic conditions, so there will be a critical need for companies to refocus on the vehicles used to attract and retain the right talent. Lastly, what long-term strategies would you recommend to benefits directors? Chuck Johnson: What I see changing and evolving in HR and Total Rewards is the need to measure outcomes versus results, both financial data and behavioral. Outcome is an extension of what goals you are trying to accomplish for your employee population and can include things like helping people to increase their focus on their retirement savings, their development and skills improvement. There will be a shift towards outcome based metrics. And for that, there will be significant pressure on HR organizations and in particular the benefit and compensation planning design portions of HR to provide information and data to management on how to shift people’s behaviors towards specific outcomes that they are trying to accomplish.
Sarin Kouyoumdjian-Gurunlian
This unique forum will take place at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, Florida, March 7-9, 2010. Offering much more than any conference, exhibition or trade show, this exclusive meeting will bring together esteemed industry thought leaders and solution providers to a highly focused and interactive networking event. The summit includes presentations on the healthcare reform, maintaining successful wellness programs, and building benefit plans to drive business goals. For more information please send an email to info@marcusevanscy.com or visit the event website Please note that the summit is a closed business event and the number of participants strictly limited.
marcus evans Summits are high level business forums for the world’s leading decision-makers to meet, learn and discuss strategies and solutions. Held at exclusive locations around the world, these events provide attendees with a unique opportunity to individually tailor their schedules of keynote presentations, think tanks, seminars and one-on-one business meetings. For more information, please visit www.marcusevans.com All rights reserved. The above content may be republished or reproduced – kindly inform us by sending an email to press@marcusevanscy.com
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