Is Sloth the Worst Compensation Sin?

[Go here for sins 1 to 4 and a bonus sin]

Sin 5. Envy

Envy makes managers do things that aren’t appropriate for the company. For example:

• Empire building. Trying to add more positions that aren’t important for the company to achieve its goals.
• Copycatting. The other department head has a French-speaking assistant; I want a French-speaking assistant. Or, the other department head just reorganized, I’d better reorganize, too.

Sin 6. Greed

One way managers and supervisors show the sin of greed is in their quest for information about people’s lives. This starts in the interview with questions about:

• Childcare
• Family plans
• Church
• Health
• Age
• And any number of other non-job-related questions

These questions are often asked innocently, but they all can cause problems if there’s a lawsuit. The court will assume that you asked the question because you wanted to use the answer in making your hiring decision.

Say you ask a woman about her plans for a family or need for childcare, and then you hire a man who wasn’t asked those same questions. The woman sues, and the court wants to know, why did you ask that question?

And then there’s the over-eager manager prying into employees’ health issues. As they say, “You can’t unring the bell.” If you later want to take action against the employee, there will be a certain amount of protection around him or her. You may be accused of discrimination based on a disability.

Try BLR’s remarkable SmartJobs program at no cost, and download the FREE report, 5 Mistakes Everyone Makes with Job Descriptions and How to Avoid Them, today! Click here to learn more.

Sin 7. Sloth

We don’t know any comp pros who aren’t busy, and we’d be reluctant to accuse any of sloth. But we do know many who have put basic upkeep chores on the back burner. For example, are your job descriptions up to date? Essential skills delineated? Mental, physical, and environmental requirements all there? Ready to back you up in court?

If not—or if you’ve never even written them—you’re not alone. Thousands of companies fall short in this area.

It’s easy to understand why. Job descriptions are not simple to do—what with updating and management and legal review, especially given the ADA requirement of a split-off of essential functions from other functions in the description. Wouldn’t it be great if your job descriptions were available and already written?

Actually, with BLR’s new program, they are.

BLR® has now released its collection of 700 job descriptions, formerly only available in the classic, but shelf-filling, Job Descriptions Encyclopedia, in a program called SmartJobs on CD. That’s cause for celebration—your job descriptions are a click away from being done.

And we’re talking about virtually all of them, covering every common position in any organization, from receptionist right up to president. They are all there in BLR’s SmartJobs.

More than 700 prewritten, legally reviewed job descriptions are ready to go at the click of your mouse. Try BLR’s remarkable SmartJobs program at no cost, and also receive the FREE report, 5 Mistakes Everyone Makes with Job Descriptions and How to Avoid Them, today! Click here to learn more.

These are descriptions you can depend on. Our collection has been constantly refined and updated over time, with descriptions revised or added each time the law, technology, or the way business is done changes.

Revised for the ADA, Pay Grades Added

BLR editors have taken apart every one of the 700 descriptions and reassembled them to be ADA-compliant. And now they’ve added pay grades for each job, based on BLR’s annual surveys of exempt and nonexempt compensation, as well as other data.

According to our customers, this is an enormous timesaver, enabling them to make compensation decisions even as they define the position.

SmartJobs also includes an extensive tutorial on setting up a complete job descriptions program, as well as how to encourage participation from all parts of the organization. That includes top management, employees, and any union or other collective-bargaining entity.

Twice-Yearly Updates, At No Additional Cost

Very important these days are the updates included in the program as a standard feature—essential at a time of constantly changing laws and, yes, emerging technologies. And the cost of the program is extremely reasonable, averaging less than 66 cents per job description … already written, legally reviewed, and ready to adapt or use as is.

You can evaluate BLR’s SmartJobs at no cost in your office for up to 30 days. Just click here, and we’ll be delighted to send it to you.