What should you expect from your C&B colleague?

It’s nice to see that nobody’s knocking on others’ doors in the festive season; so many people are having very relaxed time at the end of the year.
In Middle East, the general practice is that short-term incentive payout and the salary reviews are generally done in the first quarter of the year, so it applies for the C&B professionals here as well.
Well, this might be the silence before storm (Yes, it is!) but it’s the subject of another post.

We mentioned knocking on doors… The dark, unholy and rusted doors of the narrow cave called C&B Department?
Hey! Chill… Just joking… We’re not Orcs…

http://iron-mitten.blogspot.in/2014/12/orcs-and-their-masters.html
Image courtesy by Iron Mitten

However, I understand. Since many years, C&B has been the black box of the organization and the C&B professionals are seen as the bad guys of the town. Employees were very nervous to talk to them or ask questions… They were afraid to get a call from them which might mean that their time in the organization is over…

But it’s not the case in reality and I blame us for this.  We created this dark environment by being secretive, discussing the matters behind closed doors and doesn’t come up with answers when even the most simplest questions like “how are the salaries reviewed?” are asked.

Flickr_IntroverLeadersCommunicationMED-kenfagerdotcom4886342418_db75a10808Since last decade we are investing on the importance of the strategic communication in Total Rewards and try to be more transparent, educative and approachable. We are saying that three main objectives of Total Rewards approach are to attract, motivate and retain the employees and we are working on that.
We are spending our efforts more and more on how to communicate rather than how to calculate.
This has been accomplished in some regions and it’s still in process in others.

That makes me feel we’re in the good way when I see the happy sparks in the eyes of the employees I train on Total Rewards.

Do the C&B professionals to be that much approachable and transparent? What do you need to expect from them?

I think that there’s a limit. Yes, we should be more open and social  but we cannot give up from the main characteristics our job requires:

  • Confidentiality

A C&B professional is not allowed talk too much. At least about the details of his/her job. As a person having the maximum access to the most sensitive data of the organization, he/she cannot spread even a single part of that data. Luckily, many C&B professionals follow this invisible oath.

What do you need to do:
You shouldn’t ask too many questions regarding other people or any plans and projects about organization.

  • Working under pressure

We work under pressure.
Yes, everybody does but we do  a bit more. We work with Human; we work with Government; we work with Blue-collar and also Executives; we work with past, present and future money transactions which goes directly to YOUR pocket rather than the bank reserves which has a direct impact on people’s lives. We work with transactions as well as strategic plans.

What do you need to do:
Do not blame us for issues and problems directly and have a co-working approach. We work in the same organizations and we support you; so should you. Please do not think that C&B is just printing some pay slips and transferring money via online banking.
We can prove easily that we conduct analytical practices that many engineers never do in their daily routine. (No offense; I gave this example because I was an engineer before and never done such exhaustive analysis before)

  • Influencing

We are your consultants. If your C&B Specialist is a very well-educated and experiences in his/her area, she can be very influencing on you and your decisions.
Personally, I helped many employees when they got another offer from another company and we cannot retain them anymore (after the real break-up you can stay friends, no?), when they had issues with tax authorities or even when they were confused about the host package for their expatriation. So, again, we’re here to help.

What do you need to do:
Consider us your therapists in your Rewards. We’re there to help but also be fair and consistent. We can give you insight about the information that you can only have by word of mouth (which is almost always untrue) or won’t have access at all. Think about it like you have a legal issue and you go directly to the Corporate Legal Counsel.
Same thing here… Just don’t misuse this service and don’t take our recommendations as we try to damage your career – if we say so, it’s real.

I assume that if your C&B professionals and employees work together taking above points into consideration, the organization’s journey in Strategic HR Communication will have a big leap sooner than you think.

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