WSJ: How to Get the Salary You Want

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Nikita

Our Summary:

Research
Don’t give out the first number
Don’t lie
Don’t take the first offer
Go for benefits

Our take: this is only for people who want a steady “salary”. We recommend that you focus on the value that you are bringing with a particular focus on the bottom line and impact on the business. Also, address the question of “How are my peers/company going to work with me to reach our goals?”. Granted, this advice is not for everyone, but what most outcomes-focused employers would like to hear in response to “How much should I be paid?” is “What is the value that I bring and how can it be maximized?”. As an employer ourselves, we don’t want to hire someone who walks in demanding high base and no variable outcomes-based compensation. We want people to work with us, not for us. Continue reading →

Case: Addressing Long-Cycle Appraisals

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Nikita

Addressing Long-Cycle Appraisals is a case of a medium size insurance company, which deployed FairSetup to work in tandem with an existing long-cycle appraisal process.

Deployment consisted of three stages – a pilot, followed by gradual adoption across multiple teams, followed by company-wide adoption.

The outcomes included an increases in productivity, culture, and employee engagement.

Internships: Do I Have to Pay Interns? How to Apply FairSetup?

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Nikita

FairSetup works very well for groups of interns. Put together a team, set up goals, allocate bonus pools linked to outcomes, run the team using FairSetup, and, once outcome thresholds are reached, release payment according to everyone’s impact. But one question that we get from companies is: can interns work for free?

Continue reading →

Forbes: Time to Scrap Performance Appraisals?

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Nikita

Our Summary: Companies are radically changing their performance appraisal processes moving away from annual long-cycle appraisals towards short-cycle ongoing workflows. Annual reviews are an artifact of the past – they cause significant problems and the industry is evolving. Many are hesitant to embrace change, and the article offers some guidance, which is primarily focused on employee/goal-centric view with regular feedback loops.

Our opinion: we agree and consider ourselves to one of the pioneers in short-cycle live-360 appraisal process systems. Continue reading →

In the Press: FairSetup Suite Changes How You Meet With Your Boss And Receive Bonuses

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Nikita

We were covered in iTechPost under the title of FairSetup Suite Changes How You Meet With Your Boss And Receive Bonuses.

Continue reading →

HBR: How Criticizing in Private Undermines Your Team

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Nikita

Our Summary: Criticizing employees in private is not healthy for the team. A better approach is to, respectfully, raise the issue in a team meeting driving, peer accountability.

This relates to FairSetup in a huge way – the very process that we recommend to our clients encourages group feedback. There are several elements here: Continue reading →

HBR Blog: When Your Incentive System Backfires

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Nikita

The author goes to an Asian city and tries to get on the bus. The bus keeps passing by. Why? Because the bus driver’s bonus is connected to being on time, not servicing customers, resulting in a behavior that is opposite to that which would be optimal. This model is the focus of the article. Conclusion: be careful about identifying what’s important and how you drive participation. Continue reading →

ERE: 50 Top Problems with Performance Appraisal – the Most Dreaded HR Process

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Nikita

It was fascinating for us to read about the Top 50 problems with Performance Appraisals on ERE. It was even more amusing to identify how FairSetup addresses most of these problems.

The article written by Dr. John Sullivan starts out with a promising quote:

90% of performance appraisal processes are inadequate. –Salary.com survey

OK, something we already know. He goes on to say:

Continue reading →

We are an Agile Appraisal System

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Nikita

I guess it was only a question of time before we found out that we are, in fact, an agile appraisal system. Saw the term used one a blog here. Continue reading →

Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Nikita

I was recently introduced to the concept of ROWE (www.gorowe.com) – a concept pioneered at Best Buy by Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson. The idea is pretty simple – don’t pay people to for the hours they spend, but for the results they produce. The site is a bit limited on the details, but they did impress the white house enough to get a pilot going and now it looks like it’s seeing a wider adoption. The idea of ROWE is not new, but there are a lot of different flavors of how it is deployed and the management process that accompanies it.

Continue reading →