2013年2月5日 星期二


CONNECT - Group 6
Group Experimental Exercise 2: Arriving at a Win Win Negotiation Outcome
MGT 6209 Group Assignment, Dr Kuo Frank Yu, Semester B, 2013


Background:
Joseph was promoted to the position of “Unit Head” for three years without big jump in the salary. Recently, everyone got bonus, excluding those above supervision positions. Worse still, the rest of the Unit Head earn HKD$5,000 more than me.
Now, it is the time to start the salary negotiation with his boss.
Negotiation approach in the process
Integrative approach is the one where two or more parties sit together and negotiate for the aim to find out all possible solutions to one particular problem. At last, both agree to it. In other words, negotiators create value with respect to one negotiated outcome by finding another outcome that all prefer (Thompson 2009). Commonly, it is classified as win-win situation because all the involved parties are getting benefit in the conflict resolving process.
Build up an integrative negotiation relationship - CCTV
C - Cooperation
C - Creative problem solving
T - Trust
V - Value concession
1/ Focus on problems instead of personalities
Joseph always reminds himself that he is of focusing on the personal characteristics of his boss. More importantly, he would concentrate on the negotiation issue for the “Big money”. There is no tendency to attack his boss even the negotiations are uncomfortable to him. Keep in mind it is that person’s position that he disagree with, however, not his boss personally.
2/ Create a mutual trust atmosphere
To create a win-win salary negotiation, it is necessarily better to create an open and trusting climate. During the process, as a skilled negotiator, he should ask more questions to the boss, concentrate arguments in a direct way and less defensive. This results in increasing likelihood that they could achieve our instrumental goals. Keeping positive affectivity could reach more agreements. Some good outcomes are possibly due to better making processes, for example, creative problem solving skills, appreciation on the perspectives from boss, willingness to take some risks.
3/ More focus on Win-Win solutions
Once she found the supportive conditions, she will look for the integrative solutions. To illustrate, both Joseph and his boss must appropriately share as much information as they could have a full picture on others’ interests. Thus, mutual cooperation is inevitable. Besides, Joseph would find some solutions to the problems from his boss; For instance, he could make offer of lesser value, which gives his boss something, which the company needs. As a result, the problems could be integrated into positive solutions after realizing the objectives.

The voice from Employer
Joseph (the employee) asked for an appointment with me and I heard from my secretary that Joseph is going to talk with me about the bonus cut and the salary increment. It was in his mindset that he got a monthly base salary of HK$5,000 less than other unit head and probably HK$5,000 is the target he wants to negotiate. To be honest, it is not possible to offer him this amount in monthly base salary. It was a challenge for me, from a Department Head’s perspective, to turn the conversation with Joseph about her unpaid promotion into a positive one. Joseph has been in the current position for 3 years. The company has given many opportunities to him and he also appreciated the career development here. The increased responsibility accelerated the growth of Joseph that he should value this benefit outside of the financial reward.

Tactics from Employer for the Negotiation
Lack of transparency is the root cause for Joyce’s dissatisfaction and the bonus cut catalyze him vigorous reaction. Sharing of “key facts” from company perspective with Joseph will provide him more information:

Key facts about Company Performance
In the past 3 years, it was tough environment for the organization that we were just able to meet the target on operational profit expected from the head quarter. Thus, the company can only afford a nominal increment for the salary review, which was more or less with the inflation rate. The operating cost in 2012 increased significantly that we did not deliver the number. There is no other alternative but cutting the bonus of all the unit heads.

Compensation Philosophy
Each year, the CEO, Finance Controller and HR Director decided the overall budget for annual salary review based on company financial performance. HR Director will inform Department Heads the target number for annual salary review.  The Department Head will then work on the salary increase for each individual employee in the department according their performance rating. From the employer perspective, company financial performance and individual performance rating are the two critical factors to determine pay raise percentage. Our company is not a listed company that we normally will not disclose the company-wide salary increment to the public and thus our employee. This resulted in lack of transparency for employee to understand the company situation. The inflation rate was 4.7% in 2012. Being the Department Head, the HR Director shared with me that the target percentage for my department is 4.5% for 2013. I have the flexibility to decide a range from 3% to 7% according to the performance rating.

Employee basic information
Joseph is at 86% compa-ratio of market benchmarking. Though it was 14% lower than the industry average for this position, he has just been in her current position for 3 years. Having said that Joseph is inexperienced in him role as a unit head, he has been achieving a “Successful” performance rating last year and has great potential to excel in the company.

Strategy to arrive win-win
Taking into the consideration of the market benchmarking date and potential retention issue, I decided to make a package deal instead of single-issue offers to Joseph. The monthly base salary of Joseph will be increased by 7% to HK$32,100. An education subsidy reimbursement of HK$30,000 and 3 days of study leave will be offered to him as a package deal to perceive the total annual increment which is equivalent to almost HK$60,000.

Estimated costs per year

Current
Offer
1/ Annual base increment - 7%
-
HK$25,200
2/ Education subsidy
NA
HK$30,000 reimbursement
3/ Study leave - 3 days
NA
HK$4,500

HK$59,700

Basic salary comparison

Before
After
Monthly base salary
HK$30,000
HK$32,100, 7% increase

Benefits from both Employee and Employer
Employee:
Ø  7% increment in monthly base salary which is equivalent to HK$2,100, above inflation rate and the company target percentage
Ø  HK$30,000 education subsidy and paid study leave allows me to apply external course that can be value added to my job responsibility


Employer:
Ø  7% increment is within the range that I can manageable
Ø  HK$30,000 can receive tax deduction from the Inland Revenue Department
Ø  Manage the retention issue well and save the potential cost on recruitment and training

Make a conclusion
Many people find negotiation is stressful and thus try to escape from it. Always be reminded that we were born to start negotiation when we were born to walk and talk. Obviously, we are negotiating everyday when we talk to our friends, family members, and stakeholders at our workplace.
Remember, it is likely that your opposite party is as nervous as you are. So, don’t miss the opportunities and start negotiation. Repeatedly, more negotiation tactics can be obtained, for example, offering priorities, multiple equivalent simultaneous package deals. The next step is to “CONNECT” all these tactics together. It greatly paves a smooth path to the win-win negotiation.

Take away after our sharing
To get a successful negotiation, always remember, “CHAMP”
C - Confidence on yourself
H - High aim setting and never underestimate oppositions
A - Achieve max benefit in the best way
M - Maintain self-control
P - Planning and preparation


Reference:
1.     Leigh L. Thompson (2009).  “The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator”, Chapter 4, Win-Win Negotiation: Expanding the Pie 
Negotiators who make multiple equivalent offers enjoy more profitable negotiated outcomes and are evaluated more favourably by the other party. Specifically, they are seen by the other side as being more flexible, and they are more satisfied at the end of the negotiation. Multiple offers increase the discovery of integrative solutions.

2.     Sebenius, J. (2002). The Hidden Challenge of Cross-Border Negotiations. Harvard Business Review, 80(3).
How Negotiation-specific expectations shape the process

3.     Gregory E. Kersten. Modeling Distributive and Integrative Negotiations. Review and Revised Characterization. Group Decision and Negotiation, Volume 10, Number 6 (November 2001), pp. 508-511, http://ejournals.ebsco.com.ezproxy.cityu.edu.hk/direct.asp?ArticleID=557HHRK4YU26PGQCJCCX
Exchange of rich information may put a party at a disadvantage. It is also a costly and time-consuming process. This may be a reason for many negotiators to engage in distributive negotiation.

4.     PAUL W. PAESE, ANN MARIE SCHREIBER AND ADAM W. TAYLOR. (2003). “Caught Telling the Truth: Effects of Honesty and Communication Media in Distributive Negotiations”, pp560-562
It seems likely that many real world negotiators would be susceptible to the effects of unconditional honesty observed here. The trouble, of course, is that “honesty” is often very difficult to discern.

5.     Mark Klein.(2003). “Negotiating Complex Contracts”, pp120-123
We have also demonstrated that negotiation with inter-dependent issues produces a prisoner’s dilemma game, and that introducing a mediator that stochastically ignores agent preferences and enforces running parity in agent influence resolves this dilemma. These results, we believe, are potentially relevant to any collaborative decision-making task involving interdependent decisions.

6.     Hans Weigand. (2003). “B2B Negotiation Support: The Need for a Communication Perspective”, pp16-19
Goal-oriented negotiations do not aim at achieving obligations via authorizations, but assumes that the parties (whether human or software agents) are motivated by goals. Hence, if a deal can be defined that meets the goal of the other party, this will motivate him or her to agree.

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