Episode 43: Results from the 2021 Employment Survey

Welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall;” Your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. 

I'm so appreciative that you would join me again for “Around with Randall”. Today's the last in the series regarding employment issues. Today, we're going to address a survey that Hallett Philanthropy did, which has kind of become overwhelming, which is a good thing long-term for data. We're very fortunate that we were able to put out this survey. We had nearly 1,500 responses to the 36-question survey. We tried to break it up into various pieces that included things like compensation, job-looking, bonus structure, comparison of salaries internally, non-monetary, how goals were set and then the working environment. We laid it out in a way that allowed us to do what's called cross tabulation, which meant we could divide up these segments based on some, what I will call demographic information that included things like what level position you were, how long you had been at the organization, how long have you been in the profession, are you actually looking for a job, and currently active? That cross tab as it's called, allows us to kind of segment the data in some pretty interesting and positive ways. So those are the kinds of the demographics. 

Let me talk about two areas very quickly because we've addressed them, but they became even more heightened, and I'll refer back to two other podcasts that we've done. Then the third piece is kind of something that we've not talked about as much. So, I want to spend just a second talking about the idea of how organizations/nonprofits are using internal comparisons for their setting of what I'll call HR upper and lower boundaries of salary and how that's affecting gift officers and executives in particular. The second is I want to address the idea of flexibility. 

So, for the first we actually covered a great deal of these comparison issues in Episode 40 of the podcast, which was salaries and benefits for nonprofits. So, there's a lot of detail in there about how maybe comparisons could be done differently, but I wanted to pull a couple of statistics that were interesting out of the survey that are going to heighten that need for a more robust in-depth conversation. Number one is that two-thirds of the executives and we classify the executives as anyone who's the Chief Development Officer, President/Vice President, and then we had another category for just gift officers and that could be any gift officer planned-giving, annual giving, major giving, or principle gifts. Two-thirds of those who were executives felt as if their compensation was appropriately marked or evaluated internally against other like positions.

However, what we also found is that gift officers were at the absolute opposite of the spectrum. They believe, two-thirds of them, that their salaries were not compared accurately. When you pulled out some anecdotal individual responses, it was mainly because they felt, these gift officers, as if there was a massive misunderstanding of what they did. That a manager who they're being compared with, let's say on a nursing unit in healthcare, or maybe in a manager, let's say in admissions or in another part of the institution was not being held to the same standards. A gift officer can lose their job in a year or two, if they don't raise enough money, but a manager on a nursing floor doesn't have that same responsibility. We talked about it in that Episode 40 about how maybe, whether it's a surgeon or a faculty member or somebody of that nature, the comparisons will be much better. But what that's telling us is that we need to be careful because gift officers don't feel as if they're being compensated correctly. They are a revenue stream in this process. So go back and look it up, Episode 40. 

The other one was the idea of flexibility and that was covered in Episode 29, which was the leadership and location --where is your team working? A lot of good details in that particular podcast about what's needed in terms of leadership. As we move into a new era. Alice Ayres, who is the CEO of AHP, which is the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, here in the last week, produced her monthly CEO Corner talking about this issue. In her article, she mentioned several statistics. I'm going to mention some here that actually parallel each other, two different studies. She's quoting Pew and I'm going to quote my own statistics from the survey we did, but they're essentially the same. What I really took from Alice and her comments and someone that I have a great deal of respect for, she talks about the difference between an office culture and a team culture. I think that's a unique distinction. Flexibility is really going to be important for organizations to come to reckon. Employees are saying, if I'm not given flexibility on where I work, how often I have to come in, that me having to come in five-days a week is not going to sit well. 

So, just some additional statistics…45% of respondents in my survey, the one that was done in the last couple of weeks, indicated they spent 70% of their time currently at home and that they find it works for them. 20% of those who responded, indicated that they work at home at least 90% or from home base 90%. Several other statistics to keep in mind is that respondents who indicated that it was an important thing that they have that flexibility were exponentially more likely to leave the organization if they weren't granted that flexibility. And when you use, as I've talked about this cross tab, kind of breaking apart the statistics, gift officers were nine-times more likely to leave the organization if they're not granted, long-term flexibility in being able to work from home versus the office. Those are staggering numbers because what it's telling us is that people for the last, let's say 15, 16, 17 months through COVID have found a different kind of routine. 

Really this is going to lead us to this concept, which we talked just a little bit it’s what's called the great resignation. A Texas A&M Professor named Anthony Clots coined the phrase and he studies the idea as an economics professor, how employment and movement of people affects economics. He basically studies why people resigned and why they relocate and why they take new jobs. Research is telling him, and he's producing a great deal of this in written form, is that people are coming back to work with a new perspective of their world. COVID has shaken it up so much that they realize that the value that needs to be had personally with home-work balance is critical. If you're in Los Angeles and it used to be, you were okay with a two-hour commute to and then an additional two-hour commute home before COVID, you're not going to. That you're willing to take a little bit less money to be at home a little more often. Or if you live, let's say in a midwestern community like Omaha, Nebraska, you may not be willing to go into the office four or five days a week when you can do, 80-90% of your work out of your home office and then go in just a couple days a week for important meetings and things of that nature. 

This goes back to what Alice Ayres mentioned and then we talked about a few minutes ago, the difference between an office culture and a team culture. An office culture is one where people are present in the same place. A team culture is the people and the kind of the self-supporting environment that can be built with the people who are all trying to gather together -- maybe not physically, but towards the same goal. This is going to become a challenge. People are saying they're willing to leave their current employment for more flexibility. And those of us who are very traditional, and I throw myself into that hat, who go to the office every day. As I've told you a million times, I'm very routine-oriented. I get up, I take a shower, get in the car. I go and get my Diet Mountain Dew and my Egg McMuffin on the way to my office and then I'm at work all day. That works for me, but more and more people are saying it's not working for them. This idea of the great resignation, people will make choices, change entire industries, if we don't provide them flexibility. That's going to be a real challenge for our organizations. Okay, so those are two of the biggies that we pull out. We'll have more information on those in writing in a white paper coming up soon, but you can go back and listen to the podcasts. 

The last couple of minutes, I want to spend something that I don't talk much about and that's this idea of bonuses. We tried in the survey to pull out a little information about what people are thinking about in terms of bonus structure. What we found was that about 56% of recipients do not have an individual bonus. And 53% indicate the organization doesn't have a bonus structure at all. 75% of those who indicated that they don't have a bonus structure, says their organization would never really entertain the subject. So that gives you some kind of basic demographic perspective. But I think what's more important is what the individuals are saying. Those who do not have a bonus structure are more likely to leave their current employer than those that have one. I think just quick thought makes that somewhat reasonable and rational, but the numbers in describing it are more significant than I even imagined. When you do the comparisons inside of where people work, what we find is that 75% of executives who answered questions on the survey say they have a bonus structure, but only 40% of gift officers say that they do. And those bonus structures are anywhere between 5% and 20%. What's scary is that those gift officers without a bonus structure are nine times more likely to go look for a job. In fact, one of the questions we asked was, are you currently looking for a job? Those who do not have a bonus structure indicate that they are five times more likely to be currently looking for a job. In addition, those that have a bonus structure in some way, shape or form exponentially feel as if the organization is more fair in their comparisons of their salary internally against other maybe positions of the organization.

What is this telling us? What does all this mean? Well, we always try to get to the tactical. So, the first tactical piece is there's going to be a very detailed white paper that will be published by Hallett Philanthropy, that we will put up on the website and if you get regular emails from us, you'll get notification so you can get it. It won't cost anything, but it's going to take us a little bit of time to pull this data out and then get it into a presentable form that's readable. It's just immense and it's great. It's going to be so helpful if people are willing to pay attention. So the first tactical piece--pay attention. You probably can find some good information here pretty quickly, specifically on the nonprofit sector. For leadership long-term, I think something I recommended in Episode 40 of the podcast is we're going to have to have a longer, harder fight to get salary comparisons through HR, particularly in larger organizations, to be more fair. Gift officers are telling us they are going to leave, if they don't receive fair compensation. Anecdotally, I've got a couple of clients that are going through this process and what they're finding is that people, experienced talented fundraisers, proven commodities are saying, you got to pay me. I'm bringing in $2 million a year. I deserve 10%. Not a commission. We're not talking about Salesforce, but when they look at the hard numbers, their comment is why am I being paid $90,000 for delivering $2 Million? You have to raise that number. So long-term, we're going to have to keep fighting to get a better understanding of the rigors that come with being a gift officer that it's not like being a nurse manager or being a manager in a university somewhere where there's not a revenue goal. It's just not the same. As for HR, it's not that they're bad people. It's just that they don't see it that way. So, the long term is we got to continue that communication, that fight. Short term, we really are going to have to highlight the idea of what I consider non-compensation benefits. There was a great deal of commentary in the survey we did from people who talked about how important non-compensation benefits were. So non salary or bonus benefits like health insurance and the cost and the ability to be flexible and the ability to grow were incredibly important to individuals, particularly revenue producing gift offers.

So how do you as an organization create the best benefits package, but also sit down and create an environment that is flexible and allows an employee to grow in their career both personally and professionally, and to make up maybe some of the salary issues, base salary. How do we add bonus track? Remember ethics in our industry says you can't get a commission. Bonus structure was really built, when we looked at some of the data from our survey, was built on things like metrics. The biggest things that were talked about was obviously dollars raised, but things like how many gifts above a certain dollar amount or how many new people came into the pipeline or how many new gifts were found. We're going to have to incentivize good behavior. So, on the leadership side, we're going to have to figure out how to create better opportunities for our employees that aren't based on just their salary or bonus. 

If you're a gift officer and you're like, I'm out there looking, or I'm maybe looking, or I'm not sure I should be looking, but I'm not happy. When you go through an interview process, one of the things I would recommend is ask someone and probably not the foundation or the development office, if it's a bigger organization, ask them how they come to their salary range. What's the methodology, who are they comparing it to? You need to do your own research, use AFP, AHP. There are some great studies out there that give general information about what salary ranges are for gift officers in certain areas of the country, your area, wherever you are. You need to look at all of the non-base compensation opportunities and ask about them. Be your own advocate. I want to grow. What will my opportunities be? I have a family and I can do my job and be highly successful without having to drive X number of miles and Y amount of time. Can we make that work? The last piece is most challenging is trying to be reasonable. It's hard when you believe that you're worth more, but price, economic supply and demand is always based on this idea of where the supply meets demand on a curve or two curves. And why you think you're worth more but if you can't find somebody to pay you, then it doesn't make a difference what you think you're worth. You have to be reasonable, and it may take some time to build up and create credibility and have an organization understand the value that you bring. 

There is so much data in this survey. I'm so excited to be able to kind of pull it out and spend a little time over the next couple of weeks, putting out nuggets and things of that nature. You'll see much more either on the website or through LinkedIn or maybe in a future podcast. This has been an interesting month talking about employment. I hope it has been helpful to you both as a leader and or gift officer or someone else internally in the organization. 

Don't forget if you'd like to reach out to me, that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Don't forget to check out the blogs. We keep those kind of separate from the podcast most of the time --things going on in the nonprofit industry, or just in the world in terms of leadership and ethics, 90-second reads, and a hope that maybe they can be helpful in spurring some thoughts. 

As I do each and every time on, “Around with Randall”, let me tell you my favorite saying overall. Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. We live in a world where there's more and more people who are wondering what happened. Nonprofit work/philanthropy can be an answer to many of those things and many of their challenges and many of our communities’ needs. It's people who want to make things happen like yourself in building relationships with community leaders who also want to make things happen that make the difference in helping others and that's the basis of philanthropy. Love of mankind. So, I hope you realize the value you bring, and I hope you spend a little time thinking about how you can better those relationships and match up the needs in your organization to what the community's willingness individually or collectively will support.

The last of the five in the month unemployment. Next month, we'll jump into campaigns and talk a little bit about those in a four-part series. What is it that makes a great campaign? What are some of the hiccups? What are some of the challenges? I hope you'll join me to talk about that and much more right here on, “Around with Randall” and don't forget, make it a great day.