Many companies want to reward their top-performing employees. Increasing the compensation of high performers provides an incentive for them to exceed expectations and continue to excel in their day to day work. Additionally, it makes them less likely to accept positions at other companies offering higher compensation and different benefits if they feel valued and respected. Let’s discuss compensation strategy for your business, and how to ensure success for your organization.
Resource and Budget Challenges
Resources are finite, and performance is relative. Understandably, most companies have a limited budget for annual increases in base pay (merit pay) or employee bonuses. For example if the merit pay budget is 3%, there are two extreme methods of distributing this budget:
- Give every employee a 3% increase in their base pay.
- Choose to give high performers a 5-10% increase and give bottom performers 0%.
Performance Drives Decisions
Most managers and department leaders, if given total autonomy on how to distribute a 3% merit budget, will likely give 4% to top performers and 2% to bottom performers. They truly want to reward high performers but are hesitant to give no merit increase to bottom performers due to the potential for attrition to occur. Employees who a manager wanted to fire are probably already gone, so the bottom performers who remain are typically seen as “okay” performers (not rockstars, but also not “bad” workers). Therefore, most managers are very reluctant to give bottom performers no merit pay or zero bonuses.
Compensation Strategy For Your Business
In the scenario above (as well as many others), it is crucial for companies to have a process and system in place to ensure that high performers receive more compensation than bottom performers. This strategy is essential and vital to attract – and retain – the best employees. If you are not sure how to proceed or have concerns on making the proper decisions, fractional HR services and consulting can provide the expertise needed to develop and implement these strategies effectively.
Compensation Strategy Services
At Preferred CFO, we specialize in helping companies develop and implement compensation strategies tailored to their needs. Our fractional HR services are designed to help businesses attract and retain top talent by creating a fair and motivating compensation structure for all workers.
The Preferred CFO Difference
Not all fractional HR companies like ours offer outsourced human resources solutions that are customized, flexible, and cost-effective, ensuring you have access to the best HR consulting and support without the overhead of a full-time HR department.
By partnering with a fractional HR provider like Preferred CFO, you can access a wide range of HR solutions already mentioned, but also tap into expertise around payroll, recruitment, onboarding and training, unemployment claims, and more. We truly believe that every company is different, and we strive to provide white glove HR solutions at the most competitive rates on the market.
Preferred CFO Fractional HR and You
Let us assist you in creating a compensation strategy that aligns with your business goals and keeps your top performers motivated. With our expertise in fractional human resources, you can be confident that your compensation strategy will attract and retain the talent you need to thrive for many years to come.
Contact us today to get started!
About the Author
tom applegarth
Tom Applegarth is a 30-year veteran in the Human Resources industry, with experience spanning manufacturing plants, retail stores, and divisions of Fortune 500 companies. Tom has HR experience across the United States as well as Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
His experience has brought significant, measurable improvements in employee engagement, attrition reduction, recruitment of the best and the brightest employees, and establishment of high-impact HR processes and improvements.
Tom has over 30 years of experience, including serving at high-profile companies such as Goodyear Tires, Belden, Potter Electric, and Young Living.
You may also be interested in...
Spending Money to Save Money in Business
When to Spend Money to Make Money (and When to Not) When it comes to business, most of us live by the axiom that cash is king. We’re stringent with our overhead, careful with our purchases, and strategic with our hires. We also know that there are times you need to...
When Should You Hire a Part-Time Bookkeeper?
When a company first starts out, the owner is often a Jack-of-All Trades, doing everything from interfacing with clients, developing product, and keeping the books. Although dipping into different disciplines can be exciting, there does come a time when delegation is...
How Much Does a Fractional CFO Cost?
On average, fractional CFOs cost $3,000/month to $10,000/month. The most common agreements are between $5,000-$7,000/month for most small- to mid-sized companies. The cost of a fractional CFO depends on the scope of work provided, the size and complexity of the...
Common Responsibilities of Outsourced CFOs
Which outsourced CFO services can benefit your company? It depends on your goals. Unlike controllers and CPAs who typically have a more straightforward job description of record-keeping, bookkeeping, and tax management, an outsourced CFO's role changes based on the...
What is Cash Flow and Why Is It So Important?
What is Cash Flow and Why Is It So Important? Many financiers and business owners will agree that there is one four-letter word that is more important to a company than any other. C-A-S-H. Cash within a business is much like the waves of the ocean. It is constantly...
4 Mistakes Software Development Companies Make that Hurt Profitability—and How to Fix Them
4 Mistakes Software Development Companies Make that Hurt Profitability—and How to Fix ThemSoftware development & tech CFO, Shawn Capistrano, discusses some of the most common financial mistakes software development companies make—and how to resolve...
Preferred CFO Becomes a Strategic Partner for CEO Coaching International to Provide High-Level Financial Strategy to Elite Companies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Salt Lake City, Utah – Preferred CFO is proud to announce they have become a strategic partner for CEO Coaching International. In this role, Preferred CFO will offer financial consulting and advisory services to high-performance CEOs to...
5 Roles to Outsource for Your Company
Companies more than ever are adopting “lean” mindsets with the goal of lowering operational and labor costs while maximizing expertise. The outsourcing model allows companies to hire talent for only the hours needed to fill a particular role or achieve a goal. This...
5 Tips for Hiring a Senior Part-Time CFO
How to Hire a Senior Part-Time CFO If your company is looking to elevate your strategy, solve a problem, overcome a challenge, or prepare for a transaction such as raising capital or preparing for an exit, you may be interested in hiring a senior part-time CFO. Senior...
Financial Forecasting 101: A Complete Guide
At Preferred CFO, our tagline is “The Confidence of Knowing.” This stems from our philosophy that the more information an entrepreneur has about his or her business (past, present, and future), the better they can make business decisions that optimize their resources...
The Add-On Business Model and Why it Rocks
The impressiveness of the Add-On Model is made clear every time we run out of lives on Candy Crush Saga. Would we like to add more lives for 99 cents? In a weak moment, or (more likely) a repeated series of weak moments, the answer is yes; we want more lives. Or at...
Strategic Consistency — Do You Have it?
Prior to the 1960’s, economists like Peter Drucker thought strategy was largely about competition on price. Since then, a whole new set of ideas have been presented and studied, including Porter’s Five Forces, among others. These new concepts introduced...
