Should you ask for a 1200% raise?

Hey it's October!  The best month of the year by far. If you don't believe me, check out Months, ranked and get up to speed.

So happy October. 

Hey question for you career-minded folks or for those of you who might sit on the other side of the compensation table, making decisions about comp offers, raises, and bonuses for your teams.

Should you (or anyone) ever have the gumption to ask for a 1200% raise?

Sounds kind of ridiculous in the land of 3% annual salary increases, (maybe 4% if you are a 'top performer'), and with organizations continuing to do everything they can to resist the inevitable upward pressure on wages that an improving economy with falling unemployment will drive.

But 1200% of a pop? You would have to be really confident to make that kind of a salary demand.

Why is that particular figure on my mind?

From reading recent piece on Business Insider, Vikings part ways with their mascot after he demanded a 1200% raise.

From the piece:

Ragnar, the Vikings' unofficial mascot, and his motorcycle have been a fixture at Minnesota Vikings games for over two decades, but that appears to be over as the two sides have been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract.

Ragnar, whose real name is Joe Juranitch, was seeking a new contract that would pay him $20,000 per game, according to Michael Rand of the Star Tribune. That would translate to an annual salary of $200,000 for eight regular season and two preseason games, and an increase of more than 1,200% from his previous pay of "about $1,500 per game" last season.

I have never been to a Vikings home game, so I am really not too sure what exactly Ragnar brought to the table, and particularly what he thought would be worth about $5,000/hour (game lasts about 3 hours, add 1 hour for pre and post game work). But it is pretty clear from the way the Vikings basically responded to this demand with a 'Thanks Ragnar, it's been really nice working with you. Good luck!' that Ragnar had severely overestimated his value and his leverage.

What can us normals take away from this little viking adventure, even if we are just trying to secure a reasonable bump, say 10% or so?

1. Have some idea of how much actual value, (revenue, increased customer retention, tangible cost savings, etc.), we are directly responsible for creating. 

2. Have some idea how painful it would be to the company if we actually walked out when our crazy demands were not met.

3. Have some idea of the market more generally for folks who do what we do.

Our pal Ragnar pretty much failed on all accounts. He likely did not generate any appreciable revenue for the team. Even though his Facebook page was full of comments from fans expressing support and anger towards the team, it would take an enormous stretch of believability to conclude that any actual fans would refuse to attend games due to his absence. 

He also didn't really grasp that the games would carry on pretty much unaffected once he was no longer a part of the show. The team preparation certainly would not be affected. His absence actually would create less work not more for the game day operations staff. In fact, other than the small number of fans who missed his performance at the game, everyone else lives got a little bit easier.

Finally, there is almost no chance that Ragnar surveyed the landscape of professional sports mascots to come up with market comparables that led him to make a $20K per game demand. If team mascots were really pulling down anywhere near that kind of scratch, there would be line hundreds of people long to try out for those gigs. More than likely, one of Ragnar's buddies got into his head that he was somehow underpaid and under appreciated, (and that he was WAY more important to the product than he was).

Look, I get wanting to make every last dollar you can. We are probably all underpaid for the amount of crap we have to put up with. But the key question is knowing just how much you are really underpaid, and making sure you are honest about your value, how replaceable you are, and your ego.

Happy October.

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 193 - Humanizing Data

HR Happy Hour 193 - Humanizing Data

Recorded Thursday October 23, 2014

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Paul Hebert

This time on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish welcomed long time show friend and expert on influence and recognition, Paul Hebert back to the HR Happy Hour Show.

Paul is the Vice President of Solution Design at Symbolist, one of the first to create a blog for the incentive and reward industry – called “Incentive Intelligence” – now hosted here at Symbolist. In addition, Paul writes for one of the top Human Resources blogs – Fistful of Talent, is a founding member of the Editorial Advisory Board at the HRExaminer.

On the show. Paul, Trish, and Steve talked about the importance of the human element in things like employee engagement, recognition, and motivation strategies in organizations. While we are talking A LOT in HR about data these days, it is really critical that we don't lose sight of the human element in our organizations.

You can listen to the show on the show page here, or using the widget player below. And you can find and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes or on your favorite podcast playing app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour'. 

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

This was a really fun show and many thanks to Paul for joining us and to Symbolist for sponsoring the upcoming HRevolution event. 

Employee of the Week - '75 Stingray Edition

I am not a huge car guy, (some close friends might know that recently I flirted with purchasing a sweet white 2003 Ford Crown Victoria because I thought it would be fun to cruise the freeway and have everyone I approached from behind think I was actually a State Trooper, but I digress), but I found this recent story about the intersection of car culture and employee recognition and rewards pretty fun.

In Michigan, home of the American auto industry, a chimney sweeping and cleaning company named Doctor Flue has put a new spin on the traditional 'Employee of the Week/Month' certificate or plaque on the office wall and replaced it with, get this, use of a 1975 Corvetter Stingray that the selected employee will have use of for the week of their recognition.

Additionally, the Stingray has been fitted with a custom car wrap in the Doctor Flue corporate colors, and has a vanity licence plate that reads 'My Week.' So as the employee of the week rides down the road showing off the '75 'Vette he or she will help spread the corporate message and brand, and also to help promote Doctor Flue as a fun and rewarding place to work. 

I don't want to make too much of this story, I did think it was kind of interesting and fun and that is why I decided to post about it on the blog today. But it does give us another reminder of what should be pretty obvious and apparent but often is not - that many of the time-honored and traditional ways that our organizations try and recognize and reward employees could benefit from a fresh dose of creativity and new thinking.

Getting a mention and a kudo in the company 'all-hands' meeting or having your name etched onto a plaque that hangs on the wall in the corporate lobby is nice. It's even pretty cool. And lots of companies still do those kinds of things.

Cruising down the road for a week in a custom 1975 Corvette Stingray with 'My Week' on the tag is much, much cooler. You'd spend the entire week talking to people about the car, where you work, how you came to get use of the car, etc.  You'd probably be really proud of both where you work and what you specifically accomplished to garner the recognition and reward. No one drives around town waving their 'Employee of the Month' certificate out of the window.

And that is pretty cool.

Happy Wednesday.

Employee Recognition and Kid's Birthday Party Swag

Ever since the last SHRM Annual Conference in June I seem to have had the good fortune to end up on some kind of Human Resources marketing mailing list, (thanks for sharing SHRM!), and have seen a decided uptick in the old mailbox (the snail mail one), in training course catalogs, vendor pitches, conference supplies, (I can get you a great deal on lanyards, provided you need a few thousand), and so on.I'd rather go with Spongebob

This week an 100-plus page catalog from one of the better known employee recognition purveyors landed in the mailbox. Page after page of products like employee thank-you cards, pins, travel mugs, those cool acrylic or glass statue thingies you see in cubeland from time to time. You know the ones that the project team engraves and hands out after the system goes live or the merger is completed, kind of like miniature versions of the HR Emmys.

No big deal, right? We all know, and have read articles and seen webcasts or conference sessions ad nauseum in the last few years of the importance of employee recognition, and the critical role that it plays in fostering employee engagement, happiness, and even commitment to the organization. These are all necessary and valid concepts, and I am in no way discounting their importance here. In fact, as my friend Paul Hebert will tell you, (well I am not actually sure he'd tell you this exactly, but bear with me), a well planned and executed employee recognition program can help drive increased revenue, productivity, heck, whatever it is you want to drive.

So I was thinking about how powerful and effective the right recognition programs can be when I flipped to pages 26-27 in the above mentioned catalog (pictured above), and landed on the spread of swag from something called the 'Essential Piece' theme.  I get the idea, the company is having some kind of event, or meeting, or recognition ceremony; and they'd pass out assorted mugs, pens, tote bags, keychains, etc. all branded with some form of the message to employees that each one is an 'Essential Piece' on the team.

But in only a second of looking at the swag laid out before me, I immediately thought that these pages could have been torn from your favorite party supplies catalog, you know the section where the kid's themed birthday party stuff is laid out. Where parents that really ought to know better end up selecting cups, plates, streamers, party hats, noisemakers, cake toppers, etc. - all with the same theme. Because we know every kid's party has to have a theme, and heaven help you if you try and pair a Star Wars cup with a Spongebob plate.

Here's the section of the post where I'm supposed to drive to an epic conclusion or call to action. But this time I really don't have one other than to observe that I always felt like a doofus buying the full set of Toy Story or Pirates of the Caribbean party swag for my kid's parties over the years. None of the kids really cared whether the 'theme' was consistent from pinata to cake. But what the kids did care about was whether they had a good time, the games were fun, their friends were there, and the cake and ice cream was on the money. That's what created the memories. 

So buy all the 'recognition' swag you want - no one will remember that either for very long. But the people, the relationships, the work experiences; those things that really matter - well SHRM has not sent me a catalog that stocks those items just yet.