薪酬与环保挂钩行得通吗

    美国铝业公司位于南卡罗来纳州古斯湾的一个生产厂。

    经营环保矿场可不容易。因为就算金属较为接近地表，从地下获取金属也会破坏环境，铝就是如此。

    然而，作为全球最大铝土矿开采商之一的美国铝业公司（Alcoa）已经为自己设定了宏伟的环保目标。2010年，这家公司表示会在今后20年里将自己精炼和熔炼业务产生的碳排放在2005年的基础上减少35%。同样是在2010年，美国铝业公司设立了一个新的职位——首席环保官，由凯文•安东担任，他曾是该公司某业务部门的首席财务官。美国铝业公司将安东20%的薪酬与他在推动该公司环保目标方面的进展相挂钩。

    美世咨询公司（Mercer）的人力资本业务主管詹妮弗•瓦格纳说，大多数公司并没有将员工薪酬与环保目标直接挂钩，其中包括在企业责任方面处于前沿的公司。

    或许，重拾环保方案并与员工薪酬相结合的部分麻烦在于敲定具体的、可量化的环保目标。“它不同于财务报表，”瓦格纳说。涉及到环保，“跟踪监测的最好方法真的没有标准可循。”

    除了要制定环保目标之外，企业还必须为有效实施激励性薪酬制定非常明确的目标。2006年，美国绩效制保护委员会（Merit Systems Protection Board）就如何实施激励性薪酬的问题向国会提交了一份报告，其中写道：“企业在决定评估什么、提供哪种奖励时必须非常谨慎，因为他们很可能会得到他们衡量的东西，但这些东西可能是、也可能并不是他们真正想要的。”

    安东坚称，美国铝业公司的数据不存在问题。“我们已经建立了成熟的工作程序，拥有庞大的绩效历史数据库，因此我们可以自信地说，我们非常了解我们自己的评估工作。”美国铝业公司每年都会根据安东和其他员工是否达成了碳足迹、温室气体排放以及该公司为2020年和2030年设定的其他环保目标来对他们进行评估。

    在美国铝业公司里，不是只有安东和其他高管的薪酬才与环保目标挂钩。安东说，实际上这种做法在该公司已经根深蒂固。即使是中等部门的负责人，也有部分薪酬与环保目标以及有关工作场所安全性和多样化的目标相挂钩。

    该公司的环保目标被融入了这个矿业巨头的绩效工资文化。在安东的记忆中，美国铝业公司一直都在实行绩效工资制度，而且他相信这种制度发挥了作用。“关键之处在于，上下一心，设定积极的目标，并确保这些目标与企业发展方向相一致。”

    但问题是，激励性薪酬对企业来说到底是不是最佳的解决方案？哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）工商管理教授迈克尔•比尔说，如果薪酬与特定目标结合得过于紧密会迫使员工专注于细节而忽视了全局。

    There's no easy way to run a green mine. Harvesting metal from the ground disrupts the environment, even when that metal is gathered relatively close to the surface, which is the case with aluminum.

    Yet Alcoa (AA), one of the world's biggest miners of aluminum ore bauxite, has set ambitious green goals for itself. In 2010, the company said that it would cut its carbon emissions from its refining and smelting businesses by 35% over the following 20 years, compared to the amount it emitted in 2005. Also in 2010, Alcoa created a new chief sustainability officer position for Kevin Anton, who was formerly CFO of one of the company's business units. Alcoa connects 20% of Anton's pay to his progress in advancing the company's green goals.

    Most companies don't tie employee compensation directly to environmental goals. That's including the firms that tend to be ahead of the curve on corporate responsibility, says Jennifer Wagner, a principal at consulting firm Mercer's Human Capital business.

    Part of the trouble, perhaps, with moving green initiatives off of the backburner and into people's salaries is in nailing down specific, measurable targets for sustainability. "It's not like financial reporting," says Wagner. When it comes to sustainability, "There really aren't standards about the best way to track things."

    Green goals aside, companies must set very specific goals for incentive-based pay to work at all. According to a 2006 U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board report to Congress about how to implement incentive-based pay, "Organizations must be very careful when deciding what to measure and reward, because they are quite likely to get what they measure -- which may or may not be what they really want."

    Alcoa doesn't have a numbers problem, Anton insists. "We've got mature processes and we've got a great historical database of performance, so we have the confidence to know that our metrics work." Every year, Anton and other Alcoa employees are evaluated on their ability to reach their carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental goals they have set for 2020 and 2030.

    Anton and other C-Suite members aren't the only Alcoa employees whose salaries are tied to sustainability. In fact, the practice goes fairly deep into the organization, Anton says. Even staffers in charge of medium-sized departments have part of their salaries tied to green goals, as well as goals involving workplace safety and diversity.

    The company's green goals fold into a larger pay-for-performance culture at the mining giant. Alcoa has had an incentive based pay system for as long as Anton remembers, and he believes it's effective. "The key here is you want to get alignment with your employees, you set aggressive targets, and you make sure those targets line up with where you want to take the organization."

    But then there's the question of whether incentive-based pay is ever the best solution for a company. Coupling pay with certain goals too tightly can force employees to focus on specifics in lieu of the larger picture, says Michael Beer, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.