Ok, I have to admit that I have never really appreciated the popularity of Jonathan Ross. So his comments made at the British Comedy Awards last December on how his £6m annual deal (£18m over 3-years) was worth “1,000 BBC journalists” did not come as a surprise. Needless to say this remark did not earn him popularity when the BBC had earlier announced over 2,000 job cuts.

But the well publicised events of this past month raised wider strategic issues. Two high profile ones must management effectiveness based on the BBC’s handling of the situation and the accountability that arises from public funding through licence fees. And this brings up the question of where responsibility for setting market rates sit. Yes, celebrity pay deals may not be salary packages though the inflationary effect is not dissimilar.

So perhaps the BBC did have to ‘fight off’ rival offers from Channel 4 and ITV when the 3-year deal for Jonathan Ross increased in 2006 by a cool £4.5m to £16m. But did this play a part in Simon Cowell later agreeing to a mega million deal with ITV? The question of who leads (or should lead) the market rate for talent looks set to surface again.

Is it just a debate about the perceived worth of celebrities or does it also have a direct impact on salary packages in the public and private sector? And, if there is an impact, how does this affect issues such as accountability? Tell us what you think..

When it comes to performance pay, there’s one thing that’s certain - it generates a lot of debate across a range of issues including the fundamental question - does it actually motivate employees to perform better?

This was just one of the questions we discussed at last week’s E-Reward Conference when leading the performance pay workshop for two groups. There was some consensus that performance pay is not perfect, however for private sector participants it offered a more tangible way of rewarding those who contributed to business goals. This view also lines up with the CIPD Reward Management Survey 2008 findings where 87% of UK employers (the survey covers 2 million employees) reward performance.

One key challenge is deciding what performance gets measured and how to ensure that the behaviours used to achieve performance goals are appropriate. When used effectively, performance pay has the opportunity to reinforce culture and values, while making it clear what the performance expectations are. However, it can equally work against a company’s values when inconsistent decisions are made by senior managers, say where individuals perform at a similar level are treated differently. Performance pay was topic of a past issue of Just Rewards.

And over the past year, this is becoming a greater challenge for clients and HR people I talk to. Is this familiar? How do your line managers deal with this?

Let me know what you think…

Welcome to the Just Rewards blog brought to you from Reward First People Consulting. I’m Sylvia Doyle and over the coming months my colleagues and I will be sharing our comments and insights on what’s happening in the world of reward. Why is it important? We know that reward plays an integral role in business and people management decisions such as contemplating a merger or raising employee engagement levels to increase profitability. These are just two examples of topics requested by readers of our Just Rewards monthly newsletter. Of course this is only half of the story. 

The real benefit of blogs is the opportunity to share views and interact. The recent online comments on fuel prices in The Times, Guardian and Telegraph is one such example. Feedback has been the lifeblood of the Just Rewards newsletter with readers suggesting (by email and phone) over half the topics that we’ve covered. For users of LinkedIn, the Compensation & Benefits Q&As is popular, though where are all the reward blogs? While there are many HR blogs out there including Personnel Today, I believe that this may be the first UK based reward blog that I know of. Perhaps more will come online this year?

Topics that we plan to cover over the next couple of months are performance pay and the role of reward in an economic downturn. We’ll start off with performance pay and while it has been used by companies for decades, it continues to generate debates on whether it actually raises performance levels or not. Have you got something you’d like to share on this topic?

I would really like to hear your feedback and you can do that by clicking on the ‘comments’ link just to the right of the date, at the top of this post.