It's been nearly five months, and being a valued headcount hasn't been as bad as she fears. She does what she knows is important, ignores what she thinks is unimportant, and is not shy about asking HQ to shoulder their part of the load. She does not tolerate having her time wasted, to the point of letting phone calls go to voicemail so that HQ staff have been trained to communicate via e-mail. She continues with her attitude of "What are they gonna do-- [-]send me to sea[/-] fire me?!?" She's actually managed to get a little local authority (and some supplies) to expedite delivering to the beneficiaries at her discretion, an issue that was chafing her a year ago. So overall this has been a good thing. So far.
It was confusing to see a $100 bonus arrive in the mail last week. This is for someone who only works 10 hours/week, and who makes it crystal clear that she is not about the money. I guess she's supposed to keep the check because otherwise it'd screw up the bonus pool for the other employees, but she doesn't understand why she got it in the first place. There are certainly no performance criteria, like "Do this much and you'll be eligible for a bonus of that much." Nobody loses, because the $100 will be anonymously donated right back to the organization. But it's difficult to see how a small surprise shot of money improves performance or changes retention behavior. Maybe it just makes everyone feel good about the holiday season? Perhaps the total bonus pool was only $5000, but this is charitable-contribution money that could've been going to the program instead of to the salaries. I wonder if "employee bonus" is a line item in their IRS Form 990.
It was also annoying to get a FedEx envelope from the outsourced HR staff requesting that spouse verify her SSN-- although HR's letter neglected to tell her what SSN they have on file. The "urgency"was the upcoming issuance of W-2s. Reeeally, HR? You didn't see W-2 season coming, and it took a $12 FedEx instead of an e-mail or a phone call?!? I just hope this is coming out of HR's operating budget and that our charity $$ aren't being directly billed for this type of correspondence.
Today she got a separate (snail-mail) letter from HR explaining their 401(k) fund's performance... for 2009. Admittedly 2010 isn't over yet, and the mailer was mostly boilerplate, so maybe they're just catching up on their correspondence with employees who joined late in the year. But still, it was more money wasted for something that could've been e-mailed or even just posted on a website. Good thing she doesn't invest in the 401(k), or she'd be getting even more snail mail.
The good news is that I've pretty much stopped wondering what it would be like to have a second career. Maybe I'll volunteer my time someday, but for now I'd rather live to surf and write for fun. The other good news is that spouse & I have learned an important lesson that will be emphasized in a future blog post-- volunteer all you want, but before you enter a volunteer commitment you'd better make a private decision on your exit strategy!
It was confusing to see a $100 bonus arrive in the mail last week. This is for someone who only works 10 hours/week, and who makes it crystal clear that she is not about the money. I guess she's supposed to keep the check because otherwise it'd screw up the bonus pool for the other employees, but she doesn't understand why she got it in the first place. There are certainly no performance criteria, like "Do this much and you'll be eligible for a bonus of that much." Nobody loses, because the $100 will be anonymously donated right back to the organization. But it's difficult to see how a small surprise shot of money improves performance or changes retention behavior. Maybe it just makes everyone feel good about the holiday season? Perhaps the total bonus pool was only $5000, but this is charitable-contribution money that could've been going to the program instead of to the salaries. I wonder if "employee bonus" is a line item in their IRS Form 990.
It was also annoying to get a FedEx envelope from the outsourced HR staff requesting that spouse verify her SSN-- although HR's letter neglected to tell her what SSN they have on file. The "urgency"was the upcoming issuance of W-2s. Reeeally, HR? You didn't see W-2 season coming, and it took a $12 FedEx instead of an e-mail or a phone call?!? I just hope this is coming out of HR's operating budget and that our charity $$ aren't being directly billed for this type of correspondence.
Today she got a separate (snail-mail) letter from HR explaining their 401(k) fund's performance... for 2009. Admittedly 2010 isn't over yet, and the mailer was mostly boilerplate, so maybe they're just catching up on their correspondence with employees who joined late in the year. But still, it was more money wasted for something that could've been e-mailed or even just posted on a website. Good thing she doesn't invest in the 401(k), or she'd be getting even more snail mail.
The good news is that I've pretty much stopped wondering what it would be like to have a second career. Maybe I'll volunteer my time someday, but for now I'd rather live to surf and write for fun. The other good news is that spouse & I have learned an important lesson that will be emphasized in a future blog post-- volunteer all you want, but before you enter a volunteer commitment you'd better make a private decision on your exit strategy!
