Northwest Compensation and Rewards Forum Luncheon

I attended the quarterly NWCRF luncheon on Wednesday the 19th.

 It was a well attended event held at the Bellevue Club. Fred Whittlesey presented a thought provoking approach to understanding all the external and internal forces affecting an organization's compensation designs. It got me thinking about how compensation is perceived in the media and in the general public and more specifically by an organization's employees.

 I found a couple of interesting items on the web today that related to Fred's discussion. Here's a 15 year old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that pretty much explains why people are upset enough to camp out on Wall Street and in cities around the country. Here's a wonderful podcast hosted by Horace Dediu that explains from a market perspective why more about CEO's pay levels. I highly recommend this podcast if your interested in technology and economics.

I look forward to the next Forum meeting being held in January.  I'll post something more about that meeting the Forum posts information on their website.

2011 Milliman Breakfast

Thank you to Milliman USA, specificly Stephanie Eng, for the invitation to the 2011 Milliman USA breakfast held at Safeco Field. It was a pleasure to see Stephanie and the other consultants from Milliman, including John, Greg, Larry and Connie. It was also great to see friends from the Northwest Compensation and Rewards Forum and from past and existing project work. The panel was very informative and the audience asked good questions of the panel members.

My main take away is that merit budgets continue to remain conservative and the trend is that those budgets will continue to remain tight for the next few years at least. My second take away is that while pay and benefits remain very important, especially in recruitment efforts, the culture and work experience are key in motivating and engaging existing employees.

I look forward to the Northwest Compensation And Rewards Forum meeting in October. It's great to get out and visit with other like minded professionals.

We've moved!

In an effort to reduce our commute into work, and to allow us to be closer to home with a growing family, we've moved our office to North Bend, Washington. North Bend is a picturesque town located 30 minutes East of Seattle, nestled at the foothills of the Cascade mountain range.

Here's the City's website with some links and great photos:
http://ci.north-bend.wa.us/

Here's a link to a Flickr photoset of my photos taken around the area:
Photos Around North Bend

Our new address is:

PO Box 790
North Bend, Wa. 98045

nextcompTV - Episode 15

One final video from the WorldatWork show in San Diego. A few shots of the walk to the conference center and the 8x speed up booth take down. Next up on nextcompTV is a discussion of Total Rewards and what I learned at the conference.

nextcompTV - Episode 14

Day one of the WorldatWork conference and exposition was jam packed with sessions, booth traffic, and a social event at the historic Midway aircraft carrier.

nextcompTV - Episode 13

Setup day at the 2011 WorldatWork conference and exposition in San Diego with the 8x super speed booth setup and an interview with Audrey Johnson, Visibility Manager at WorldatWork.



Be sure to follow @nextcomp on twitter to get ongoing updates from the Expo.

I'll also be at the social event this evening on the Midway.

I hope to see you there!

nextcompTV - Episode 12

Bob and I met on Wednesday, May 18th to talk about the "job" and why this concept is still a very important part of the work that we do as human resources and compensation professionals. Also if you are headed to San Diego for the WorldatWork show please stop by booth 227 and say "Hi".



Here's a link to the Compensation Café article:

Evolution or extinction

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad