Compensation has long been a challenge for HR pros worldwide. You’ve got to balance fairness, competitiveness, and business goals, all while making sure internal stakeholders and C-suiters are on the same page. Not an easy feat, even for seasoned HR leaders. It’s no wonder compensation remains a total headache machine for both HR and execs alike. But what if tackling comp challenges didn’t have to be so hard? You’re in luck: It doesn’t.
In this article, we teamed up with Carta to break down three critical compensation challenges and (better yet) provide practical, actionable solutions that not only solve them but also make your cases to the C-suite stronger. It’s time to turn those headaches into high fives.
Challenge: Balancing fairness and competitiveness
So here’s the deal: You want to ensure that compensation is fair, attractive, and industry-competitive to attract potential employees and retain your best talent. Aaand you wanna communicate all that to the C-suite, obviously. That much is certain. But how to do it? Well, that’s a little trickier. Most HR pros turn toward data here—survey responses, industry standard data, comp reporting, you name it. All this is fine and dandy, but the reality is that data is often collected quickly, leading to banding anomalies, edge cases, and errant data points that skew ranges. The belief that more data = good data is misguided, and execs don’t have time for that.
Solution: Secure up-to-date, comprehensive data to create better comp plans.
The trick here is not to secure as much data as possible but to prioritize good data hygiene. You need a compensation solution that compares your existing comp leveling with peer group analysis for readable, tactical figures, not just random smatterings of numbers. By accessing up-to-date, reliable data through a compensation solution like Carta Total Compensation, you can craft better (and exec-friendly) comp plans that strike a squeaky-clean balance between fairness and competitiveness. Data cleanliness ensures your comp plans are based on accurate, actionable insights, making it easier to align with industry standards and meet your company’s broader goals. Plus, your boss will be happy.
Challenge: Aligning compensation with your business goals and proving out your decision-making internally
Ahh, another angle HR has to consider: internal business goals. If your compensation strategy isn’t in sync with how the suits upstairs are steering the ship, you might as well be running headfirst into a brick wall. For HR leaders, it’s about proving your plan supports and boosts the company’s broader strategic goals.
The stakes are high. The last thing you wanna do is give the C-suite a financing headache. It sounds almost too obvious, but it happens time and time again. So how do you avoid it? Many HR pros turn toward reporting here, and it’s a good move. But much like the data hygiene problem, reporting comes with all kinds of cleanliness issues. What reports should you consider? Are you building comp benchmarks to land a new hire? For leveling and retention? Or are you effectively forecasting refresh of equity grants for maturing employees? These are all common road bumps HR workers face when getting C-suite buy-in.
Solution: Build accurate forecasts and use reporting tools to give the C-suite better insight into spending.
Not to make this sound easy, but if you want to win over the top brass, you’re gonna need some solid reporting and accurate forecasting. In other words, you need something like Carta’s Total Compensation solution to get more vis into spending and to build out more accurate, readable forecasts and reports.
Transparent forecasting and reporting play a huge role here. They can help you align your comp plans with your company’s overall financial strategy, foster trust across all levels of the biz, and guide your decision-making with strong data points—because you know the C-suite is gonna wanna see clear and concise numbers. Specifically, forecasting methods like historical analysis, benchmarking, and predictive analysis can help you create stronger budgets and better plans for changes in your workforce. Reporting tools, such as salary benchmarks, pay equity analysis, and budget reports, can help you navigate compliance and boost employee retention and satisfaction. In short, forecasting and reporting are your tickets to gaining internal support.
Challenge: Adopting a better compensation platform is a hassle
Think of this obstacle as the final boss in the HR-exec quest. Getting the C-suite to sign off on any new platform—let alone a hyperspecific HR solution—is a tough sell, really. You can present all the data, make a strong case, and demonstrate how a new solution could better align with the company’s goals, but you can still get the same old response: “Eh, adopting a new platform is just too much of a hassle.” Change is met with resistance, period. The thought of overhauling existing systems to integrate new compensation platforms seems like a daunting task for even the most seasoned techies among us.
Solution: Don’t rebuild—just plug in better compensation solutions to your process.
Instead of embarking on a full-scale redo of your existing systems, the smarter approach is to find compensation solutions that integrate seamlessly into your current setup. (Ding-ding-ding: Carta’s Total Compensation is one such solution.) You need a platform that offers easy, plug-and-play integration + cuts down all the large-scale disruption that gets the execs sweating. Think of adoption more as adding layers of greater intelligence to your system vs. trying to completely reconfigure your workflows. You’re not paying for redundancies or changing what’s working. You’re simply optimizing—and that’s the ultimate goal of the C-suite.
Nail it
From researching industry-standard data to creating squeaky-clean reports that win over execs, acing your comp game can be a total rigmarole. But with the right tools, solutions, and approach, you can climb out of the mud and into clear-sky compensation.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. eShares, Inc. dba Carta, Inc. (“Carta”) is not providing legal, financial, or tax advice, and nothing herein is intended as a recommendation, offer, or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Carta does not assume any liability for reliance on the information provided herein.