Salary boost to cover two positions in short term?

Caroliso

We have someone in a key role who has handed in her resignation notice. This is a position that shouldn't go uncovered. The position handles contract negotiations and is the first one in our company, so ground lost would be painful. Previously this work had been done by the CEO, the CFO, and counsel, both costly and timeconsuming for the CEO.
We have someone in another job but at the same level who might be persuaded to put some of her department responsibilities on the back burner and fill in. However, since she is a department head, and there would be some cost to her dropping some subset of her responsibilities, and so she is likely to wind up working extra to cover these two positions. These are both exempt positions, obviously.
The question has arisen about whether we could offer her some short term compensation increase, 5 or 10% maybe, while she's doing this double-duty, which would go away when we've hired someone to replace the departing person (probably 3-6 months).
I'm sympathetic but a bit reluctant for the precedent it sets. People cover for staff who are on leave all the time without getting more money. I've done it! But I think I can make the case to myself that this does not routinely happen, that it's possibly a longer period of time than the standard leave, in a role critical to the company and not easily filled by outside help, or a temporary contractor. She would be covering for a person in a different department, covering some of the duties of this position until such time as a replacement can be hired.
Thoughts?

Hunter1

We actually do have a policy to cover situations like this, but with two conditions which may make in inapplicable to your situation: The position the person is filling has to be a higher graded position in our class and comp system, and the 'temporary' assignment has to be for more than six months. We consider shorter assignments to be 'learning' situations from which the employee may benefit down the road (promotion, reclass, etc), and feel that if you're filling in for a lower graded position that it doesn't warrant additional pay. Like you, we have people who fill in for short periods of time on a regular basis, and wanted to make the policy inapplicable to those situations.

Trinity

While I agree that it is routine in the workplace for employees to cover each other, a dept. head who will be losing money and taking away from their dept. to work in a field completely different from their present job, does sound more extreme than the normal "covering." Considering what this person would have to sacrifice for an extended period of time (3-6 months IF you find someone by then) and critical factor of the job, I would offer to compensate them temp. for their willingness to take on the extra work. As this type of situation is probably not a routine one, I doubt you would have to worry about setting precedents. Besides, no one but you, the CEO and the dept. head need to know about their raise anyway...

ritaanz

I have been in a similar situation. The employee we approached had done that type of work before and was familar with it. We discussed taking over the primary issues on a temporary basis along with continuing to do their regular job. No monetary reward was discussed. The employee knew we were in a bind and accepted the additional responsibilities. When a replacement was hired, the company gave the employee a bonus for accepting the additonal work and a 2 day weekend getaway. The happy employee's response was, "The money is nice but the recognition is better."

Mentel

Instead of raising the salary for a short period of time, I would go with a bonus based on hours put in and length of time doing the double duty. This way, you do not have to decrease a salary at the end of the temp period. You could even "tax it up" that means if you give her $2000, you would tax it up so that she would actually get the $2000 after taxes.

Maggie

Caroliso

thanks, Hunter and Trinity. Any thought on level of increase? The job isn't a grade up from the existing, more likely a lateral position. 5 or 10%?

Caroliso

Oops, I posted the above before I saw that others had commented on the issue of dollar amount. Thanks for those, and other comments still welcome!