Arbitrary benefit change by CEO

Nina I

Our "new CEO started just less than 2 years ago. We had a well written, established corporate policy handbook (as well as a separate handbook for field employees). As time has gone on, he has added management positions that did not exist before, as well as changed the titles of several employees already on staff, and awarded these individuals a different amount of vacation time, presumably to obtain or retain these people, i.e. being competitive with other benefit levels they had at other companies, or as a reward for doing a good job. It is time for me to update the handbook (way overdue to other changes that have occurred in policy over time), and I am at a loss as to how to handle the different benefit structures. How common is this, and how do other companies handle it? Do you just "x" out the entire vacation accrual schedule and write "at the discretion of management"?

I might add that he is not receptive to any questions regarding his management, uh, style, shall we say? When concerns have been brought up in the past, the person questioning the inconsistency has been labeled a troublemaker, and not favorably rewarded at review time. As I am Compliance here (I work closely with HR), this falls to me, unfortunately, and I just don't know what to "suggest" to him to get some return to consistency. Any ideas?

Hunter1

Might not be of too much help, but if you have a compensation system with grades or salary levels, you might allow some discretion above a certain salary or grade level while keeping benefits consistent for other levels.

Nina I

Oh, such a good idea, in fact, our HR person has been trying to get to that for the last year. Absent that, any other thoughts? Or maybe she should she push forward with the compensation study/plan, and deal with it that way? Assuming we take that path, how then do we address the current inequities?

Rockie

In our practice, Certain levels of our employees (Sr. Managers and some high level clinical people) get extra vacation days (and other perks) over and above the published number of days. If this occurs, I usually just put this addendum in their letter of hire. I wouldn't try to incorporate all this into the handbook. I would just include the published scale for the majority of the employees.

This is the way I handle any type of situation "outside the norm" where because of any number of reasons, we may have to offer something over and above what we normally would.

This is becoming typical in healthcare where the market for good people is rapidly shrinking and certain segments of the medical community can name their own price. This is unfortunate and is akin to being held hostage, in my opinion, but we have to deal with the reality of the situation.

In a perfect organization, everyone would be treated the same, i.e., benefits, compensation, etc., but all of us know that rarely happens.

Nina I

I wish I had been more specific - sorry. These are people who occupy a position at the same level as others, but are receiving much more vacation time than the others at the same level. Our "old" benefit structure specified one level for "corporate hourly employees and project managers" and then a separate level for "coordinators and officers." The inconsistency came when one person was hired at the coordinator/officer level and was given the 5 year level at his first year . . . the second problem was when an admin person took on additional responsibility as a project manager, as was also given coordinator/officer level . . . aaaggghhh. I so agree with you that this is getting more common - I just need to know how to address it in our policy.

hrbanker

Rockie has the right idea. We have a similar situation in that some people have held temporary positions where they were rewarded additional vacation days, then went back to their old jobs and were 'grandfathered' and kept the additional days.

Our policy addresses the system that covers the majority of the employees. The others are considered exceptions, and that is documented in each file along with the reason the exception was granted. --I have three employees doing the exact same job and one has six days vacation more than the other two. I don't advertise it to the other employees, but the one with more days knows that she has more time off than her co-workers.

Nina I

Thanks so much - I think I'm getting the drift here, finally!

Crout

Nina, it sound like your problem has been solved for you. You merely need to delineate the different benefit levels in the handbook without attaching a specific level to any position class. That leaves the CEO free to "bump" a new hire up to a higher level if he/she chooses.