A comprehensive assessment of the CEO and C-suite compensation every 12 to 36 months is essential to ensure your executive compensation remains competitive, defensible and aligned with your organizational goals.
Wilson Group’s approach is disciplined yet flexible to meet the needs of mid-size, public, for-profit and non-profit organizations. Our process ensures data credibility and leadership/Board buy-in; providing important data insights and tailored recommendations.
Understanding Your Roles, Organization and Compensation Philosophy
By conducting initial interviews with the Chief Executive Officer and Board leadership to understand the business strategy, talent market and the total rewards strategy, we create a customized approach to your market assessment. A careful review of your job descriptions, executive census data and incentive plan documentation will ensure we fully understand your positions and the current state of your executive compensation.
Defining and Researching Your Talent Market
We research and recommend a peer group, salary surveys and databases that best represent your specific executive talent market. Once sources are confirmed, we utilize multiple data sources to create a robust market composite for each position. Prior to sharing the data, we produce a formal methodology report describing all the inputs and the approach to the analysis. This is provided to you for feedback, to ensure the Board and leadership are aligned with the talent market before we bring the final analysis.
Understanding Your Market Competitiveness
The compensation data typically analyzed consists of base salary, total cash compensation, target incentives, as well as long-term incentives and total direct compensation. If a total rewards approach is desired, an understanding of the competitiveness and prevalence of executive benefits is also included. We compare your executive data to the market using variances, explaining outliers and trends resulting from the analysis.
Reporting and Presenting Data Insights
The process culminates in formal reports to the Chief Executive Officer, Compensation Committee and the Board of Directors. We facilitate meetings with these leaders to ensure a deep understanding of the results and help you make compensation decisions within the context of your business strategy and compensation philosophy. This level of review ensures that compensation programs are well-understood and defensible, providing the documentation needed to satisfy stakeholders and regulatory requirements (such as those for tax-exempt, regulated businesses and public companies).
Establishing a Governance Cadence
By establishing a consistent cadence of thorough executive compensation checkups every 12 to 36 months, CEOs and Boards can move beyond reactive decision making. This proactive approach will allow you to secure and retain the leadership continuity necessary to drive your mission and strategic plan. Partnering with Wilson Group as your independent executive compensation consultant provides the objective expertise needed to navigate these sensitive analyses and discussions with confidence.
