This story happened in 2008. This company operates in an unionized work environment, which means our plant operators and technicians are members of the Company-approved employee union. We had Collective Agreement that spells out term and condition for union members. This CA is revised every 3 years and the latest revision was implemented last year in July.
Among new item added is new salary adjustment. Somehow during the latest revision issue surfaced as not all operators benefited from the adjustment. Some were considered not eligible. Salary people in HQ said anomalies were inevitable in big population and the approach adopted is the option with less adverse impact. And this resulted in some junior operators left out. They came compaining
to the management and CEO promised he would do something. CEO asked HR to look into the matter. I said salary is one of the policymatters managed by the HQ not by the branch HR manager. What the affected staff could do is work extra hard to catch up with their colleagues. Working harder normally translates into better performance rating. Better rating in turn translates into higher annual increment. HR and CEO met the affected staff during breakfast meeting. We explained the process and calculation and everything we wanted them to know. They bought in. Subsequent HR examined their performance ratings and push one notch higher.
Among new item added is new salary adjustment. Somehow during the latest revision issue surfaced as not all operators benefited from the adjustment. Some were considered not eligible. Salary people in HQ said anomalies were inevitable in big population and the approach adopted is the option with less adverse impact. And this resulted in some junior operators left out. They came compaining
to the management and CEO promised he would do something. CEO asked HR to look into the matter. I said salary is one of the policymatters managed by the HQ not by the branch HR manager. What the affected staff could do is work extra hard to catch up with their colleagues. Working harder normally translates into better performance rating. Better rating in turn translates into higher annual increment. HR and CEO met the affected staff during breakfast meeting. We explained the process and calculation and everything we wanted them to know. They bought in. Subsequent HR examined their performance ratings and push one notch higher.
Lesson learnts: Anomalies do happen in any salary revision implementation. Use less damaging approach. Arrange for engagement session. Explain. Don't apologize.
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