Compared with bottom-line measurements like ROI, employee satisfaction might seem far less important. The more "enlightened" PR industry CEOs, recruiters and executives, however, are striving to keep tabs on compensation and employee issues.
Judith Cushman, an executive recruiter in Issaquah, Wash., recently asked clients, potential recruits, contacts and business heads to share their compensation concerns - this time from the employee perspective. These are some of their verbatim responses. Corporations struggling with HR issues would be wise to see whether any of the sentiments ring familiar and to use their own internal surveys to flesh out these issues in creating corporate compensation policies.
"All too many individuals are going corporate simply to raise their income levels. Especially if they are married and have children. This leaves agencies with lower level everything. And, based on the agency buying sprees and top executive salaries at these agencies, it looks like this imbalance could be changed. (The resources are there.)
Keeping good people is not simply a matter related to the benefits package. People are still looking for healthy environments. Stress the 'healthy.' Lack of real time consideration for the working environment and treatment of employee costs. It is wonderful to talk [about] good management and HR practices because they are still very rare commodities.
vice president at high-tech agency, now consulting, Northern California
"Over the years, I have found that sales and marketing VPs are reluctant to pay dollars (salary increases and bonuses) to PR people who measure their performance in non-dollar terms. (How much would you pay to someone who 'got' 10 clips last month? Are 10 clips more than you expected - or more than your competitor got - or more than someone else in the same position would have been able to get? Were these 10 clips from publications that reach a lot of prospects - reach a few of your best prospects - and are read thoroughly and closely by any of these prospects?
Will these clips help sales, hurt sales or have no impact at all? As a CEO told me 12 years ago, 'I can't deposit clips in the bank.' As long as PR people have vague answers to these kinds of questions, they will continue to have trouble getting the kind of compensation that a salesperson gets for 'getting a customer to sign on the dotted line.' I've often found it ironic that salespeople get all the 'credit' for making a sale - when good marketing (and good PR as part of that marketing effort) can lay the groundwork for and even accelerate the sale. But salespeople bring back something 'measurable' in dollars - a contract. While marketers and PR people bring back non-dollar measures of their results: clips, gross rating points, impressions and brand awareness. The price people pay for not measuring their performance in dollars is...dollars!
director of PR, media conglomerate, New England
"Employees like to feel valued and trusted. One way companies can show this is by allowing workers (depending on the job requirements) to work from home one or two days per week or when necessary. Having to show up at the office five days per week and for eight-10 hours at a time makes people think they are in a work camp or prison. Studies have shown that companies that allow their employees to occasionally work from home have seen no drop in performance, but rather have seen performance increase. My best ideas have all come to me at home, not at the office, which is frequently full of distractions."
associate director, national agency, pacific northwest
"Unfortunately, in today's hyper-competitive labor market (especially in tech communications), compensation has seriously lagged and the problem is finally catching up to the agency as can be seen through major turnover in the past two years. Concurrently, as pressure to achieve similar 20-percent+ margins has continued over the years, things such as training/development/etc. have become seriously compromised, resulting in added reasons for people to leave. How do I hold onto my best SAEs when they're being offered double at a rival tech boutique agency that's hungry for the best large agency talent? In place of matching compensation, what else do I have left to offer these people to stay?"
senior VP, international agency, Washington, D.C.
"In general, the marketplace sets the remuneration rate, not the employer. If an employee feels he/she is being underpaid, they will seek other employment, but pay alone can't make an employee happy. It's called the garbage man theory - the garbage man can't make you happy by taking away your trash every week, but he can make you unhappy if he doesn't."
account supervisor, national agency, Texas
"Employees are in a better position than ever to benchmark their compensation against prevailing local market rates, yet many employers fail to do their homework and to take into account the retention/recruiting implications of an increasingly enlightened workforce."
senior account executive, international agency, Northern California