On October 6 Europe’s highest court struck down an international agreement (Safe Harbor) that has allowed thousands of companies to easily transfer personal data from Europe to the U.S. This lawsuit appeared to be the “final straw” in a string of incidents involving data privacy beginning in 2013 with the revelation that American intelligence agencies had access to people’s online activities. The ruling highlights the different views towards online data protection. MORE

A closer look at the data shows that 15% of employers awarded merit increases of up to 2.5% in 2013) of responding employers did not award merit increases in 2016. Finding usable market data: 12.5%. 2017 Bonuses. last year) paid bonuses to their exempt employees in 2017, with 18.4% (up from 15.7% last year) of those surveyed awarded bonuses to their hourly workers, with 21.6% last year) paid bonuses in addition to salary increases, and 21% (24.5% MORE

With more time and data on hand, HR professionals can optimize their efforts around programs such as recruiting. After putting the call for employee testimonials on Kazoo and offering small “Behavior Bonus” incentives for them, awareness of the initiative skyrocketed, and Emmaus ended up with over 100 “I Heart My Job” stories for the recruiting program. Related: See YouEarnedit customers who have improved Glassdoor ratings in this short data sheet. MORE

As per Mercer’s 2019 Global Performance Management Study, little has changed in how performance management is designed and executed in companies since its previous report in 2013. Depending on performance evaluations, the company decides on bonuses, pay hike, promotion, etc. MORE

Sales compensation has always been a different beast: it has different buyers and economic cycles than employee rewards, and sales incentives constantly evolve to meet new business needs. These include changes in the level and mix of benefits, widespread use of incentives for employee performance, commonplace use of pay for skills and competencies, and the emergence of the Silicon Valley model of rewards. MORE

Appreciation and employee engagement are mistakenly seen as soft benefits – making it all too easy to avoid investing in an employee experience enhancement program that, at first glance, looks more like a bonus than mission-critical functionality. There is quite a bit of research data to support this finding, and we also have real-world examples. Employee recognition software that includes incentive features can dramatically boost participation in training programs. MORE

In the past, companies focused on developing standard products and standard service lines and then incenting their sales force to push and sell them to existing customers and prospects. The crucial challenge is to use ABC beyond calculating valid customer profitability data for decision support. The data could also help suppliers identify customers who are substantially unprofitable: those who reside deep in the bottom-right of the grid. MORE

Bureau of Labor and Statistics found that in 2013 fulltime workers averaged 42.5 Employers would do well to evaluate their systems for several payroll items, including bonuses, overtime tracking, and daily time-keeping of time worked. Firstly, it is important to know that nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments can be used to satisfy upwards of 10% of new salary level requirements. MORE

From its impressive data set — over eight million employee responses were considered — many high-level trends in employee engagement were found. “Fair pay,” once the main factor behind the rewards and recognition driver in past reports, now only plays a supporting role in this year’s data. Before you raise the number of gift cards and spot bonuses handed out, raise your expectations for what employee rewards and recognition can be at your company. MORE

As data and analytics bring increasing sophistication to our understanding of employee and organizational performance, will we be able to identify the plus-minus statistics for our teams? Creative Commons image "2013 01 18 McFarland youth Hockey at UW game (3)" by Elliott Connor Photography. Bonus/Incentives Metrics/Analytics Pay for Performance Performance Management - General Is "making teams better" the new holy grail of performance analytics? MORE

As we noted in that post, Deloitte’s 2013 Human Capital Trends report addresses the issue in a section called, “The Performance Management Puzzle,” which offers a number of insights into exactly what’s vexing most employers (changing performance pressures, stagnating measurement and evaluation processes, evolving but unproven technologies, and the quality of the training and tools given to managers, to name just a few). MORE