Workers want more money, or they may walk! That's an important reality to keep in mind as you plan employee compensation. But the other reality is that you must maintain a financially healthy compensation budget from year to year. Plus, you must provide workers with expectations on how they can meet goals that will make your business more productive and yield higher pay for them.

And, from there you need to address several questions:

• Where will money for potential increases come from-higher revenue, increased productivity, new products or services?
  
• How can you make merit increase decisions that stand up to management as well as employee scrutiny? And, what about a regulatory agency review?
  
• And how do you set appropriate rates for merit increases?

Setting up your salary budget to cover an employee's improved or high-quality performance can be challenging. There has to be enough to cover potential raises, or you can expect to lose your talent to a competitor, but merit raises can't break the bank. Join us on for practical tips and strategies to navigate this tricky territory with much-needed insight on how to manage salary budgets and use merit increases effectively.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the differences among past, present, and future of merit pools
  
• Determine the correlation between performance to merit pay
  
• Select a merit increase option
  
• Set up different types of merit increase options-including the pros and cons of each
  
• Determine how to budget for the various merit increase options
  
• Identify what you need to analyze before approving increases
  
• Truly reward top performers
  
• Determine when to award merit increases
  
• Establish the salary budget for other compensation increases
  
• Communicate the merit increase option clearly
  
• Consider meaningful alternatives to merit increases
  
• And much more!

Register now to learn how to master budgeting for salary increases

About Your Presenters:

Cassandra Faurote is president of Total Reward Solutions. With more than 25 years experience in human resources, Faurote has spent more than 15 years specializing in compensation and benefits. Her experience has spanned all functions within HR, from the start-up of HR departments to leading several HR functions in medium and large organizations, and she has now consulted in over 20 different industries on compensation issues. Faurote holds certifications as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Certified Compensation Professional (CCP), and SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP). She has taught in the human resources certificate program at IUPUI, and has also authored an article in Workspan, a World at Work publication, on "10 Ways to Use Your Merit Dollars." She served on the Total Rewards Indiana (formerly CBPI) board for several years and is a member of World at Work, Society for Human Resources Management, and Indy SHRMFaurote has been a speaker for three years at the Indiana State Human Resources Conference and currently serves on the Board of the Greater Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.

Karl Ahlrichs, SPHR, is a consultant at Gregory & Appel who has broad experience in senior level problem solving, with proven skills in handling complex organizational issues with uncommon sense.Ahlrichs is a national speaker and author who joined Gregory & Appel after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, a human resources services firm. He also served as a Senior Consultant for Professional Staff Management. He was in business development in the Indianapolis office of Marsh & McLennan, and Vice President of Right Management Consultants. Ahlrichs facilitates an invitation-only roundtable for Indiana CFOs, and was the program chair for the Indiana Society for Human Resources Management annual conference for more than a decade. He is a member of HRPDA, SHRM, the American Society of Training and Development, and the Association for Psychological Type. He is president of the Indiana Chapter of the National Speakers Association, and was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. Ahlrichs has presented at the National SHRM Conference for 10 consecutive years. He also has presented at BLR's Advanced Employment Issues Symposium.