Rewired

Chapter 11Recognize distinctive technologists

If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.

—Red Adair

It's not realistic to expect an established company to completely change its approach to talent management to accommodate digital talent. Most companies, however, find that they can work within their current talent management framework to address the specifics of digital talent. Two areas that matter the most are compensation and performance management.

Adjust compensation to pay for skills

Compensation for technical skills is often dramatically misaligned with someone's value because rewards in traditional companies are often tied to tenure or number of employees supervised rather than engineering prowess. This leads to dissatisfaction, and it gives high performers a compelling reason to leave.

Modern companies celebrate technical career paths where individuals can have outsized impact on a company's performance based on their craft. This has given rise to dual career paths where technologists can grow either in a traditional managerial track or in an expert or engineering track (more on this in Chapter 12).

As you consider how to adjust your compensation framework for digital talent, keep in mind the following:

1. Compensation is benchmarked to Big Tech. Big Tech sets the bar and most other companies figure out where to peg their compensation, depending on their local market and the quality of talent they are competing ...