Salary negotiation meetings are usually well structured and executed affairs, but what happens when employees demand more than their manager can offer? Del Hunter explains why security managers should plan for staff exit interviews rather than wasting valuable resources as both sides delay the inevitable.
Those of you that heard the University of Northumbria's Dr Martyn Dyer-Smith speaking at last year's SITO conference will be familiar with how he equates employee behaviour to the spilling of a glass of water – no matter what you do, each will seep down to its natural level. The assumption being that, just as water always obeys the rules of physics, so employees will always follow human nature.

In the context of salary negotiations, this means that security managers unable to give their employees what they want are left facing one of two possible outcomes, neither of which bode well for continuity.

By far the most common outcome of these negotiations is recognised by its only symptom, the now-strained conversation between manager and hitherto communicative employee.

On the surface both sides will appear happy with the outcome, and any change in attitude is subsequently dismissed by the manager. Within a few days things will soon return to normal, that is until Murphy's Employment Law strikes again (this is the law that says your best employee will always resign at the very time when their expertise is most required).

In the remaining cases, workers' attitudes towards management are visibly compromised as protracted, team-wide dissatisfaction causes a change in the status quo. These situations are painfully transparent to other employee groups, managers and visitors alike. Unless the manager takes swift action a drop in performance is inevitable, and Murphy's Employment Law will strike again – only this time around it will impact upon a wider group of employees who have depressed eachother in a spiral of discontent. Not only that, the 'social exclusion' suffered by managers will prompt some to consider changing their employer.

Negotiate and motivate
Negotiation is not necessarily based on the art of trading money for improved performance, but the broader skill of making employees do exactly what's required of them. This includes getting to know employees' needs, wants and desires. Seldom is the negotiation meeting purely about money.

To illustrate the point we looked at the database of a well-known specialist security recruitment firm, and spoke to a number of sales staff who were looking to change jobs after what they deemed to be unacceptable salary increases. From this group of dissatisfied employees you could count on one hand the number considering leaving solely – or mainly – for monetary reasons. The only common theme we could find was the expression "I'm not motivated any more".

Other, non-sales applicants that we looked at gave reasons for moving jobs that were equally unrelated to money, yet followed recent pay reviews. One supervisor cited a "personality clash". Following an interview this was changed to: "We are treated like mushrooms, and always kept in the dark" etc, etc.

Suggestion schemes, achievement awards, regular team meetings and on-the-job training are all cost-effective measures that security managers might introduce when compared to the real costs associated with replacing key members of staff

My final example is that of a security officer who claimed, quite simply, that "guards on the other site earn more". You might argue that this is proof that money is the main motivator and, at first glance, I'd be inclined to agree (in particular where hourly-paid employees are concerned). On reflection, though, is this officer not suffering from the same 'complaint' as that which is common to the other examples cited here – what the 1960's economist John Hicks referred to as an injustice, and that I would term emotional 'levers'?

Identifying the emotional levers
The members of today's workforce have a better idea of their commercial value than ever before and, as standards of living have risen to meet the maximum ceiling employers can afford to pay, it's true to say that 'creative' security managers must identify the emotional levers required to attract and retain staff.

The range of emotional levers and other benefits that managers may incorporate in their wage strategies are the subject of endless debates. In truth, a whole army of compensation and benefits specialists are engaged in the field of human resources management. That said, and accepting that the majority of reasons why employees leave relate to emotional issues, is it not the manager who is best placed to identify them – and then put into place effective counter measures?

Don't forget the Internet
For those still not convinced about the true role played by wages in salary negotiations, consider the impact of the World Wide Web. This is the one area in which employees have access to comparable salary data for all disciplines, at all levels and across all nationalities.

A casual glance at the data shows the huge divergences between rates of pay and yet, in every group other than the hourly-paid sector, this has not led to massive labour movement.

There are many simple solutions that can be used to resolve tricky personnel issues. Suggestion schemes, achievement awards, regular team meetings and on-the-job training (even the occasional external course) are all cost-effective measures when compared to the real costs associated with replacing a key member of your security team.