Structure Experience

Issue: Lack of Pay Philosophy, Structure, Process or Success Measures

Your compensation plan is ad hoc, lacks continuity and drives no real return on your rewards investment.

Impact: What’s Affected

Ability to build a unified financial vision for growing the business.

Players: Those Involved in Finding a Solution

• Chief Executive Officer or President
• CFO
• HR VP or Manager
• VisionLink Consultants

Triggers: Symptoms of the Problem

• Pay decisions are made in an ad hoc fashion.
• Incentive plans are constantly being reinvented.
• There is no standardized process for determining pay increases.
• There is no philosophy or standards guiding pay design.
• Temporary pay solutions are often implemented which create adverse long-term consequences (lack of a coherent salary structure, discretionary incentives, premature sharing of equity, etc.).

Preconditions: What’s Assumed in Pursuit of a Solution

• Corporate players establish a compensation committee and decision-making process and hierarchy.
• Corporate players willing to receive guidance on best practices and commit to a structured process.
• CEO or President is committed to providing strategic leadership in creating a performance structure, defining value creation and articulating a compensation philosophy.

Post-Conditions: What’s True Once the Solution is Applied

• The compensation committee has a clear process for envisioning, creating and sustaining its pay strategy.
• The compensation committee is guided by a compensation philosophy in making all pay design decisions.
• The compensation committee employs a Total Compensation Structure for managing a cohesive, integrated pay strategy.
• The compensation committee measures the return on its total compensation investment and adjusts pay allocation accordingly.
• The compensation committee has an established purpose and defined financial commitment for each of its pay programs.
• The company is prepared to engage in The Strategy Experience.

Normal Flow: How VisionLink Works to Solve the Problem

1. VisionLink meets with company leaders (players) to define the desired outcome(s) (post-conditions).
2. VisionLink works with company leaders to identify a clear compensation philosophy statement.
3. VisionLink helps company leaders build a Total Compensation Structure with each of the potential compensation plans identified on it.  
4. VisionLink gathers information on the company’s current compensation offering and identifies problematic plan designs, inconsistencies, statutory or financial vulnerabilities, financial risks, market pay discrepancies, etc.
5. VisionLink places current plans into the structure and helps identify shortfalls, gaps, areas needing definition or organization, imbalances, etc.
6. VisionLink makes change recommendations for all plans needing improvement or redesign.  
7. VisionLink recasts the Total Compensation Structure with recommended changes and allocations.
8. VisionLink creates a prioritized game plan and timeline for constructing new plan designs.
9. VisionLink builds a financial model that projects expected company and shareholder growth at base, target and superior levels of performance.
10. VisionLink works with company owners and leaders (players) to determine how much of the increased value they are willing to share (via various rewards plans) with those who will be responsible for driving that growth.  
11. VisionLink introduces the engagement that would be used to execute the company’s prioritized game plan.