Should PR execs be paid extra for getting their company some ink in a newspaper or magazine article? Or for bringing in business to the company?
While many in the PR industry agree that signing over a check to account execs for getting themselves or their company cited in an article can be a questionable practice, it's still judicious - and ethical - to find ways of monetarily rewarding your employees. (The practice of paying employees for this, however, is reportedly prevalent in some companies, such as Forrester Research, which compensates its analysts in part on how often they get quoted.)
"Paying our employees because they're quoted is shortsighted and potentially dangerous," says Larry Kamer, president of Kamer-Singer & Associates Inc., a PR and public affairs firm in San Francisco. "What we've done is compensated employees based on a mix of responsibilities (giving an industry presentation, turning cold calls into deals)" that are tied to the company's business philosophy of regularly pulling in new clients.
Compensating employees either monetarily or in other ways certainly makes for good employee relations. But the practice should be applied consistently - for example, with written criteria established for when an employee would be given a bonus.
For Kamer-Singer (it has $3.4 million in annual billings), the cornerstone of its employee compensation practices is tied to its overall business model: attracting new clients and leveraging the company's name. And because not everyone's a pitch person, ending up being quoted in the newspaper or racking up media impressions is a barometer agency execs haven't adopted.
"I won't get specific but I have heard of one company that pays handsomely, let's say, if you get something in The New York Times" [a placement that can easily be valued at thousands of dollars if you were attaching a price tag to media attention]. "But I don't think it would be right to do because it creates somewhat of a perverted incentive."
Instead, Kamer and his colleagues have attempted to compensate employees by fleshing out some long-term "trickle-down programs" that are borne out in their business strategies: the most relied-upon tactic is giving employees who bring in new business a percentage of newly earned fee revenue. It could be as much as 10 percent and it could be for as long as a year.
"We are very clear about this [with its 30 employees]," Kamer adds. "If you extend our business into a new area, there is this bonusing system.because we want employees to feel vested in our company."
When setting up an employee compensation program, be sure that it is directly tied to how your business operates on a day-to-day basis. It can't be something that's sporadically and subjectively applied.
To keep employees at Kamer-Singer focused on pursuing business leads:
- Execs go over, at staff meetings, which new clients are being courted;
- Only senior execs can access a spreadsheet, an internal bulletin board that serves as a tracking mechanism, that's updated with new client developments; and
- Staffers write weekly reports and detail where they're making their efforts.
FedEx's Financial Motivators
PR firms, however, aren't the only ones that have jumped on the bandwagon of equating professional excellence with a monetary figure.
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A Primer On Employee Rewards
1. Reward new business efforts. If an employee introduces the company to a new client, seizes an opportunity, uses contacts to open up a new industry area, he or she should be rewarded.
2. Create opportunities for senior employees to help manage the business.
3. Set standards and expectations for employee performance and compensation before the new fiscal year begins. This starts with clear job descriptions, reporting relationships and standards for evaluation.
4. Offer a profit-sharing program if you consider yours a business that depends on its employees for its success.
5. Reward exceptionally good performance with a timely cash bonus. Bonuses shouldn't necessarily be held until the end of the year. Source: Larry Kamer |
At FedEx, its 130,000 employees can be rewarded through dozens of different avenues, according to Greg Rossiter, managing director of PR for the Memphis-based business.
For about 25 years, the company has used its "Bravo Zulu" (modeled after the military practice) employee-compensation effort to single out employees.
Instead of looking at what employees achieve over a stretch of time, managers use their discretion to recognize employees' efforts in a time-sensitive way.
For example, someone might be given a check or tickets to the theater or a sporting event for a recent project he or she completed that required extra time at the office or for successfully implementing a fledgling program. (Rossiter wouldn't tell us what the cap is but said it can be worth several hundred dollars.)
But FedEx also ensures that it compensates or rewards its employees for initiatives that aren't based on bottom-line issues but on humanitarian deeds.
Last winter, it gave one of its couriers a "Golden Falcon" award for saving a woman whose car had plunged into a lake. And one of its execs was spotlighted for rescuing a man who got caught up in a rip tide while the FedEx employee was on vacation.
(Larry Kamer, 415/512-6800; Greg Rossiter, 901/395-4440)