OVERVIEW

There are bosses which are asshole, there are asshole companies, there are also asshole payment/recognition mechanism out there.

I have found myself, and most of the people I know, unsatisfied when talking about money.

Not only in relation to the amount, but also how it is calculate what is worth to gain.

I think that people providing new way of doing things should be reward, people who do also little bit more, should be reward as well, people who choose to relax a bit should be able to do without being consider a burden.

Because all this I try to identify what could be good, thinking of a group of people working in parallel for providing Support & Consulting.

But this could be apply to any field.

The numbers are theoretical nothing is taken from real world, so please consider them as just an example.

The concept

The idea is to define a way to identify the correct remuneration for someone that could work on support and Professional Service.

The start point will be the base (gross) salary that needs to be considered the same in both cases.

The differentiation will occur on the base of the real work done, how it is done, client satisfaction, and knowledge sharing with colleagues and community.

The parameters should take in account, functional aspects, and social aspects as well.

The functional parameters have a direct relation to the “work done” only client side.

The “social” parameters should represent the activities oriented to increase the knowledge sharing, the interaction and (last but not list) the innovation.
Those will represent the “good will” of being part of an active company, and will be calculated as and add-on to the base bonus.

Just for illustration possible fields could be:

1.     Forum participation

2.     Articles and publications

3.     Training

4.     Speeches

5.     bug discovering

6.     Innovation (like but not only)

o   coding:

§  scripts

§  small apps

Starting data

These are the base numbers to be considered for the calculation:

Gross expected salary

Fix/variable %

Bonus max value

Compensation (by role eg support/PS)

Localization (adjustment on the base of the resource location)

2) Parameters

As already indicated two different main categories of parameters needs to be used, Functional and Knowledge Sharing.

I am going to consider an approach that could be valid for support and consulting.

Functional

1)   Number of consulting days at client site (travel including)

2)   Client rating (considering the base for full recognition the 4.2 vote, any point up or below will modify 10% points  e.g. 4.2 = 100 recognition, 4.0 = 80% recognition). This is valid for both Support and Consulting.

3)   Utilization, this is valid for both support and consulting, but it is calculated on different value (e.g. 62 vs  85), and on the base of real day worked/ not worked for the specific role.

4)   Service Target (e.g. issue assigned/resolved against time)

Knowledge sharing

Any contribution will be considered as X values to be summarized and used for increase the % of Utilization.

As an indication values could be as:

Forum = 1 point x thread

Article = 100 point

Publication (book/manual) = 1000 point

Training  (as trainer) = 300 point

Training as attendant = 50 point /day

Speech = 200 points

Bug discovering = 10 points for confirmed bug

Coding script = 200 points (simple script) 400 points more complex ones, small application = 1500 points

Any 10 points could be considered as 1% of utilization.

How to trace the values

Functional F(n)

Knowledge sharing             KS(n)

F1 = Consulting days at client site + travel (calendar)

F2 = Client rating calendar + voting (support days/activity)

F3 = Utilization (excluding F1)

F4 = Tracking the activity and resolution on the Issue/bug tracking system

Total Utilization FU = (F1+F3)

For Knowledge Sharing, information needs to be inserted in a simple system (like spreadsheet), and confirmed by the manager reporting the final number of points per month.

Formula

Total Knowledge Sharing points (KT) = ∑(Kn)

Compensation (CV) = (consultant's days) F1 * (daily gross * 0.45);

Base fix salary (SFV)= (estimated value * Localization_Index)

Bonus max value (BMV)= base_fix_salary / x (where x is the variable/fix %)

Utilization Consulting = number of free days (excluding support)/Consulting Utilization target

Utilization Support = number of free days (excluding Consulting)/Support Utilization Target

Utilization Index (UI) = UTPS (balanced) + UTSUP(balanced)

Bonus Index = Average value for the quarter of : ((Utilization Index * Rating index)+(Knowledge Sharing) ) * Target satisfaction index.

Conclusion

Far to be perfect, what I have put down was a start, a point from which companies (the good ones), should start to think.

One of the key concept, is that no one is able to deliver the 110% for long, or even the 100% for long, so companies should allow people to relax a little bit more, in relation to their capacity, assuring for the good planning of the activity a % as minimum delivery, but then allowing the resource to play with the other % in relation to his internal personal status.

Applying the squeezer methodology, as many companies do, is the most IDIOT choice a company can do.

This is the first source of people leaving, which drive to loss of know-how, and loss of internal confidence between employee and employers.

In few words it is a company suicide.

I am far to be an expert in this secific field, but I would like to have open discussions with the external.

Let me know what you think.

Short comment

Some friends of mine told me that ASSHOLE is too strong, and should not be used. I disagree, there are assholes out there, starting to call with their real name "ASSHOLE" could help all of us to start  isolate them. See company like Halliburton, how you want to call them? Unfortunately they are not the only ones.

This do not means that I want to open a fight, just that we need to recognize when someone is acting like an asshole.

That's all.

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