Archive for the ‘COMPackage News’ Category
by Joe Blattner | June 7, 2023
COMPackage 3.0 brings a host of new features and improved usability to COMPackage Total Compensation Statements. Here are three of the top new features.
1. Hourly Top Box Scores
Visually show the total hourly rate. (read more)
2. Illuminative Metrics™
Show all kinds of useful compensation-related information that is excluded from total compensation calculations. (read more)
3. Digital Delivery
Enable employees to access their Total Compensation reports online. (read more)
by Joe Blattner | November 20, 2019
Each generation experiences the world a little bit differently. These experiences shape their consumer and professional preferences. Today’s youth really are different from yesterday’s, even though they may seem similar. Understanding the nuances of different age groups gives recruiters and managers a boost in meeting their needs.
For companies large and small, understanding the values, desires, and quirks of different generations can be both challenging and rewarding. The good news is that you can better reach your audience if you understand the means and messaging that will engage them most effectively. Take Millennials and Generation Z for example. While these two groups may seem similar, variances in their upbringings have resulted in different outlooks and expectations.
Millennials
Millennials are the demographic cohort following Generation X. Their birth years span from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s. This group was shaped by two main events. First, they entered maturity during the Information Age. They began using information technology and social media around the start of their adolescence. However, while they are proficient in these avenues now, their childhood was relatively free of technological emphasis.
The second contributing factor for Millennials is the economy. Millennials reflect the idealism of having been raised during prosperous economic years. They emphasize the experience of their workplace participation and consumerism more than previous generations. Millennials were largely raised by parents from the high-consumption Baby Boom generation, further reinforcing their economic trust. Due to their idealism, their comfort with confrontation and their relatively limited ability to recognize different points of view, Baby Boomers are also referred to as the “Me Generation.”
Generation Z
Generation Z was born between the mid-1990s and 2015. This group was exposed to information technology, social media, and digital technology from a very young age. They probably don’t understand the “Be Kind, Please Rewind” slogan or the need for a hardback encyclopedia set or the struggles of trying to properly refold a road map. Other nicknames for this group include the iGeneration, referring to the Apple wave, and the Plurals, related to the use of multiple screens at one time.
This group is thought of as the first truly digital native generation. They’re more comfortable than their predecessors at cataloging and cross-referencing a vast amount of information. Generation Z is also much more comfortable learning and engaging independently via technology.
Generation Z was raised during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Because of this, they tend to view money more practically than Millennials. Gen Z is less idealistic and more realistic than Millennials. They reject confrontation but do like to find a commonality to resolve issues.
Motivating Factors
Millennials are motivated by the experience more than Generation Z. On the flipside, Generation Z is motivated more by the actual product. While Millennials typically prefer a travel experience or festival, Generation Z members prefer a unique object or product.
Studies indicate that Generation Z members value saving money and job security more than Millennials do. Generation Zers that are old enough to work are now taking full-time jobs at a higher percentage rate than previous generations. When consuming, Millennials are more drawn to big-name brands, while Generation Z is marked by a desire to express their individuality though their purchases.
One key factor that motivates Generation Z is their ethics. Generation Z is attracted to companies that take a stand on important issues and then follow through – i.e., put their money where their mouth is. Understanding this and the other preferences of each group can help recruiters attract and retain the most desirable employees.
by Joe Blattner | February 10, 2015
Profitability depends on increasing revenue, decreasing expenses, or both. Whether in good times or bad, decreasing expenses is always a good thing to do – unless it affects the quality of what you offer or your ability to sufficiently reward the people that make your company successful.
To compensate for company budget shortfalls, some executives choose to over-focus on saving pennies on things like single-ply toilet paper, eliminating employee lunches, charging employees for coffee, and so on; or, fixate on large, often counterproductive measures such as a less attractive health care plan. Typically, the greatest costs are associated with employees, and an understanding of employee turnover costs can be a revelation.
The Costs of Turnover
Company turnover costs don’t need to be hard to pin down, even though most employers have never taken the time to calculate the true cost of replacing a worker. These costs can be deceptive, but they are significant and avoidable. How significant? Anywhere between 25% and 100% of an employee’s annual salary!
Let’s look at the costs of turnover, which we can break into two categories: the costs associated with an employee leaving the company and the costs of replacing that employee. Of course, both sets of costs are incurred when an employee is replaced.
When an employee leaves a company expenses may include:
- the cost of performing exit interviews, changing passwords, etc.;
- severance pay and benefits;
- lost revenue due to lost productivity in the time when one employee is leaving and the other is being hired, trained and coming up to speed; and,
- clients lost due to continuity issues when an account manager leaves.
New employee acquisition costs can include:
- costs of using an internal or external recruiter;
- costs of ad placement for the job opening;
- cost of the new employee’s time for any interviewing process;
- cost of staff time to perform interviews;
- costs that are incurred when performing background checks;
- any inherent bonuses, compensations or other hidden administrative costs;
- costs associated with training new hires; and,
- the cost of carrying new hires while they are going through the training process.
There are also significant hidden costs, such as the intangible effects of stress a short staff puts on other workers and the loss of company knowledge.
All of this assumes the employee works out. A significant number of employees leave after only a few months, either because they receive a better offer (possibly from a job they were pursuing when they found you), they don’t like the company culture, they don’t like the work, or you don’t like them or their work.
How to Reduce Turnover
Often the best way to increase profits is to reduce turnover. Solve your turnover issues by focusing on sustaining a healthy company culture. Happy, productive workers are your most valuable assets. And let’s not forget the brand-value of happy workers saying good things in a community of peers and associates.
To reduce turnover, you want to examine exactly why employees are not happy – and then fix it.
- Are they feeling overworked?
- Is the work environment unsatisfying?
- Do they not fully appreciate their total compensation?
The first two may involve some surveying and internal soul searching. The last one is a problem easily solved by today’s inexpensive, online total compensation reporting solutions.
The Striking Value of Total Employee Compensation Statements
The tool that most effectively reduces turnover is . A good solution will provide a simple, one-page, graphic display of each employee’s total compensation, including everything from salaries to the cost benefit of free parking. Many employees are pleasantly surprised to learn how much their benefits add to their total compensation. This helps them be less likely to leave for salary or benefit reasons, and has them feeling more valued.
Reduced turnover always means higher on-going profits. Sustainable growth means stabilizing your workforce to cultivate steadily-increasing employee value as they become experts in the field and in their positions. To this end, don’t underestimate the value of total employee compensation statements. Consider this business advantage today.
by Joe Blattner | December 15, 2010
When I began making further use of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn earlier this month, I quickly found out how unsuitable a rectangular-shaped logo can appear, given that these social media networking websites only allow companies to have a small logo space on their profile page.
This led me to have a new logo designed, specifically for these social networking profile pages. What the heck – the current logo needed a facelift anyway, since it was originally created when our product included pie charts instead of our current bar charts. I employed an agency to come up with a few (14) designs. Now, the thing about logos is that they should look good, whether they are spread about on a full page magazine advert or reduced to 100 pixels of a tiny icon on a computer screen. That can sometimes be a difficult challenge, but it’s important to think about before deciding on a permanent logo, a fixture of your business, your brand.
After many designs were created, much deliberation ensued. In deciding the overall design of the logo, the idea of a “C” appealed to me, since COMPackage begins with a “C”, of course. And it also stands for “compensation”. And “cash”, come to think of it. But the larger question was, ‘how can the logo encompass the “employee benefit statement” aspect?
I originally liked the idea of having a bar graph inside the “C”, but this ended up looking more like some sort of a ratings bar chart, and it didn’t hold up in micro size. And COMPackage used to use pie charts to display the , (because pie charts are preferred by employers, but more difficult for employees to understand, based on focus group studies that we did in 2008).
But this “C” icon made more sense for the brand and the image that I want people to have of COMPackage and employee benefit statements, in general. To further drive home the point that ALL compensation, benefits, and “perks” should be included in employee benefit statements, there is a “core” to the “C”, with an outer wrap around the “C”. The core “C” encompasses the base compensation, or the meat of an employee’s compensation – the salary, commissions, bonuses, and holiday pay. The outer wrap signifies all the add-ons and the extra benefits employers and employees don’t normally consider as part of their compensation: healthcare, auto, technology, training, food, and other specialized company benefits that are rarely understood because they never get discussed.
I hope that the new logo is visually appealing to you, but that it also holds meaning for you like it now does for me. So, when a business owner or HR Manager thinks of COMPackage, they may now also think of how to better communicate to their employees — by letting them know all of the pieces of the “pie”.
Let me know: what do you think of the new logo?
by Joe Blattner | November 5, 2009
On the blog, you’ll find important updates to our company, our software and insights on total compensation reporting.
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