HumanMarkets

From an HR point of view – support full marriage rights for gay people.  It’s the market thing to do.

.

Of course for most people the debate on same sex marriage is somewhere between a cultural, religious, political or human rights issues.  My personal opinion is not the point of the post but for transparency I will make it clear that I support gay marriage in every way as a fundamental civil right.  But that is not why HR people should support this institution. 

.

Marriage is a really helpful idea for at least everyone who is not in a given marriage.  The two people in a marriage have a unique relationship.  Like snow flakes, finger prints and chocolate chip cookies, no two are the same.  In fact, it is likely that no marriage relations stays the same very long.  Like any other personal relationship it is organic.  Sometimes it is stronger; sometimes weaker; usually just stranger – it is always changing and in fact, it is likely changing and re-changing in complex way because each spouse is constantly re-evaluating their connection within the marriage and to their spouse.  Inside of a marriage is really, really, complex. 

.

Outside of a marriage is pretty simple from a legal or market kind of view.  Either they are married or they are not married.  It is a simple bright line test.  The rest of us don’t need to know if you are lonely, happy, satisfied, despondent or anything else within your marriage relationship.  We don’t even need to know if you are faithful.  You is or you ain’t their baby.  Bright line tests reduce costs because they reduce the expense of information gathering, evaluation, investigation and adjudication.  You is or you ain’t.

.

We typically only deal and only want to deal with the employee him or her self.  Sometimes becasue of benefits typically, or in the event of death or disability, we need to know with whom an employee is partnering.  We need to help get value created by the employee in our programs into the home or the family when the employee can’t do so on their own.   Sometimes regulation requires that we move some of that value to others in the family.  Imagine what all of this would be like without marriage.  It would be impossible with certainty or efficiency to sort through the various relationships that exist within society.  Marriage makes it clean because two people are signalling to the rest of us that they want to be treated as a family unit. 

.

Two people can grow to hate each other, or worse, ignore each other, but that is not our concern if they don’t divorce.  Conversely, two soul-mates who are an integrated partnership in every way signal to the rest of us that in fact, they do not want to be treated as a unit by not marrying.  (For those who correctly say that they don’t need a piece of paper to prove their love, they are right; they just need that piece of paper to prove to me that you can exercise her stock options if she gets hit by a  bus tomorrow.)

.

Bottom line – there are people who are gay.  They work in our organizations.  Marriage allows those people to signal to the rest of us in an efficient way how they want to be treated – that is, as a unit.  As HR people we should support rules and social structures that bring clarity and efficiency to the work place.

.

And – it is a civil rights issue – but that’s just me.

3 Comments | In: Ethics, Multiple Markets, benefits | tags: Gay Marriage. | #

What makes someone competent to be an executive compensation consultant? 

Everyone from   Henry Waxman (D – Cal), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to the SEC, academics and the media have had their say on what they think the appropriate relationship is between executive compensation consultants and public companies.  Unless I have missed it however, one of the most troubling questions to me about EC consulting has never been asked.  Who are these people and what credentials them as expert consultants?

Maybe we are relying on the market to self-regulate.  Incompetent people just don’t get hired and go off to do other things.  Competent consultants get more referral business and prosper.

Those of you that follow the thrill a minute world of executive compensation consulting know that change is in the air.  The SEC is demanding new disclosure of the relationship between public companies and their compensation consultants.  Different, but related, compensation consultants have for a few years now been blamed for “spiraling executive compensation” and the so-called “ratcheting” effect of peer group benchmarking.  More and more scrutiny is being applied to consulting. I am not  particularly critical of executive compensation consulting; I spent 10 proud years being one.  This is not consultant bashing.

Here is the point – at some point, some of the being executive compensation practices of the big consultancies, or some boutique is going to be asked about the backgrounds of people who are functioning as consultants to the boards and or management of publicly traded companies.  Some of the academic and professional credentials are going to sound thin.  There is essentially an apprentice system in place.  Someone is a executive compensation consultant, because someone more experienced in calling themselves an executive compensation consultant has hired them.  It is a self-perpetuating credential.

Those of you familar with the Christian church concept of “Apostolic Succession” – essentially how the Pope gets to be Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury gets to be the Archbishop – will recognize this system.  I am the Pope because bishops who can trace their bishopric back to Peter, say I’m the Pope.  Here if Pearl, Peter, Ira, Fred, or the other Apostles of Executive Compensation appointed me, or if I was appointed by someone appointed by them, I am in.

The system has worked reasonably well – again, I generally support the quality of consulting that exists in the market.  However, as the environment gets more complex and more adversarial, the consultants involved would be well served to formalize their credentials.   Like ir or not, Executive Compensation consultants are moving closer in the regulatory mind to auditors and accountants.  There is a growing appetite for accountability.  (Not surprisingly when the Executive Compensation consultant charges the same hourly rate as an Audit partner.)

If World at Work, or SHRM was smart, they would get agreement among the big guns that a form of an “advanced CCP” or its equivalent would be created that the consultants would all recognize as a required credential to consult to a public company.  This would create minimum standards for methods, ethics, and other professional standards.  This is more important now because many of the big consulting houses have either voluntarily or involuntarily shed executive compensation consultants who specialize in Board clients.  Many small shops are springing up.  Hiring and development of people in the ranks is going to get more diffuse.  It would be good to know that certain minimum skills and training is in place across the Board.

To date there have been more executives in front of Congress than individual, practicing consultants.  If you have been in consulting for 30 years already, that is your credential.  Some day there is going to be a report or a body of work linked to some situation in a public company that is going to be used by a Congressional committee in a hearing.  Someone more junior than the 30 year consultant is going to sit at the table with the green felt.  Their credentials and background is going to be used to batter the whole profession.  Let’s try to avoid that day from coming to pass.

2 Comments | In: Compensation, Ethics | tags: Executive Compensation Consultants. | #

Every organization should be thinking about some way, even a small one, to galvanize employees and resources to do something to help the people in Haiti.  There is no market reason for many organizations but they should do it anyway.

There is however, a market for self-respect (self-respect has to be earned; you must do things with scarce time and resources to earn it; you must make choices between actions that may be more pleasing but which generate lesser amounts of self-respect).

No Comments | In: Ethics | tags: Haiti, Self-respect. | #

I got a small beige card in the mail this week. It was a simple thank you from a consultant that I engaged this year. I really appreciated recieving it.

My group has a big budget. (You know how sometimes people would next say something like – “well, at least it is big to me… ” – yeah no. My budget is big to you too. It’s big like “make a consultant’s year with a single phone call” big. 

We spend our shareholders’ money very carefully. They pay us to be stewards of their enterprise. Fortunes, jobs and communities are lost when we are not. Men and women toil in the cold, and heat, and dirty wet dark, to produce the budget I spend over phone calls and lunch. A thank you will not get you my business. However, letting me know, through a simple written thank you that you understand, like I do, that budget is borne of work and trust, will help you get the nod or keep the work.

This is the only hand written thank you that I recevied in a long, long, long, time.

No Comments | In: Ethics | tags: Stewardship, Thank You. | #

Here is my crazy ass idea of the day.  Help America get out of the recession by tipping “more bigger”.  There is a couple of under-pinnings to our thinking here.  First off, support the working poor.  Yep, I am one of those people who don’t do a lot of hand outs on the streets.  I would rather write a big check to a social services agency and hope for sustainable change than meet an intense need in the moment.  Even better however, is helping to make working for a living in a sustainable, market-created job, easier.

You can support that market solution both by helping the small business owner (or a big one for that matter) while having a direct impact on the life of a person working hard at a hard working job.  If you tip a full 20% for reasonable service; maybe if you do 20% and then round up to a nice number, you are making an impact on people who need the money.  They get the satisfaction of work and reward.  They become more optimistic.  They then spend that money elsewhere.  The become more a market player. 

This is not just a restaurant thing.  Tip a paper delivery service; tip a service technician in your home; tip the lady who shows you to your seat at the ball park; tip a maid.  The point is – tip service people in low paid jobs more and the ripple through will be good for our country.  It is a better mechanism and better incentives than handout.  It builds self-esteem through working.

Why you?  Because you can.  You know it and I know it. People reading this blog are generally more affluent than average.   You probably have a college education, if not more.  You spend money on discretionary items.  You can find a way to share your success in the market with those that are still reaching for something you have already passed by.  Also, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping others, helping the country and contributing to a more sustainable market-based society for everyone.

4 Comments | In: Compensation, Ethics, Labor | tags: Market Solutions, Stimulis, Sustatinablity, Tipping. | #

 Last week, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI released a “papal encyclical”.  Essentially this is a “white paper” from the Pope.  This particular one is entitles, Caritas in Veritate(Love in Truth) deals with economics and finance.  It makes some broad statements about the ethics of economic activity and is very clear about markets.  His Holiness makes some powerful and to me, surprising points.  His intellectual power as well as his firm grasp of the reality of the “real world” come through in the document.  Frankly, I would not recommend it as a read for the uninitiated.  It is hard to get through and papal encyclicals are written as much for a “technical” theological and philosophical audience more than for the average person on the street or “in the pew”.

An excellent summary of the encyclical can be found by Robert Sirico.  Sirico is a Catholic Priest and the President and CEO of the Action Institute.  The review appeared on the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal.

Here is my take on what is being said.  They are great lessons for anyone in business; especially so for HR.  You certainly don’t have to be Catholic to want to follow them and they will make you better professionally regardless of what if any religious sensibilities you hold.

We are economic beings.  Participation in economic activities and specifically in market economics for goods, services and labor is a good an natural part of the human condition.

It is unhealthy and unnatural to seperate your economic self from your real self.  “In truth” is the point.  We are, “in truth”, meant to recognize that there are standards in life.  Truth is not relevant.  Now if you buy in to a Catholic Christian theology that might mean one thing to you.  Even if you don’t it may come down to the ‘golden rule”  – being fair; being honest are absolutes.  Bottom line economic market activity is good and natural but you don’t get a pass from holding yourself to absolute moral standards just because you are acting in a market based, economic activity.

Finally, His Holiness call on us to act with Charity.  Beyond just ethics or doing no harm, he calls us to our real selves and our inherent charitable essence.  Does this mean that we can’t compete in a market?  That we have to only cooperate in our economic activity.  No.  He teaches that the Church has not technical advise to give about economic activity only that we we need to bring our integrated selves to the market.  Be the person that you know you should be, doing what you know you should be doing.

My own take on this is compete away.  Sometimes that means getting the better of the other guy.  It means getting the best price.  It means winning.  It doesn’t mean lying.  It means giving what you said you were selling.  It means telling the whole truth and then letting your customers or sellers deciding. 

For me, if in HR I fire somebody because business is bad, I can look myself in the mirror.  If I fire somebody because the boss is tired of having an extramarital affair with them, I can’t   I am only one person – economic and spiritual.  I have only one market.

I am a Catholic.  I like being Catholic and proud to be a Catholic.  This encyclical will help me be a better one and a better business person in HR.

2 Comments | In: Ethics, Labor, Multiple Markets | tags: Encyclical, Ethics, Love In Truth, markets, Pope. | #