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A poor compensation plan
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Posted on Jan 16 2014
The article “PSS bares salary scale of personnel” is an interesting manifestation of a poor compensation plan.
First, PSS must demonstrate how it developed and justified its existing pay plan for its certified and non-certified personnel. If its present compensation plan is not justified, then PSS may have been overcompensating its personnel, thus its human resource system could be out of order. Any compensation scheme must follow a bell shape structure in that the bulk of all personnel should be within the average or median distribution.
Second, PSS must consider compressing its compensation schedule to a manageable and economical basis. It may consider a different approach such as a broadband pay design. In my opinion, PSS personnel system should consider introducing a pay scale of not more than 13 pay levels. Consolidating the pay scale would pave the way for pay-for-performance basis and would allow PSS to use its pay practices to reward good and above-average performance outcome of its employees.
Then again, if the science of human resource management is absent as a considered and reasoned approach to PSS’ compensation needs, continuing on with the present pay practices is even more problematic. So, for PSS to say that its present pay plan is in order, it must demonstrate that it was not arbitrarily set and historical data and study are available and could be produced to substantiate the sufficiency and appropriateness of the pay plan. What the pay of any public employee in the CNMI government should account for are the know-how, problem solving, and accountability of each position utilized by all jurisdictions. Hence, the compensation plan should bear these factors in its design and implementation, while meeting statutory mandates.
[B]Francisco R. Agulto[/B] [I]Kannat Tabla, Saipan[/I]
