Leverage Compensation

A cooperative’s strategy and daily decisions regarding base and variable pay send messages to employees – whether intended or not. Compensation represents a significant investment of organizational resources, and should be managed as such. A sound compensation strategy ensures compensation decisions and messages drive the desired employee and manager behaviors. 

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Compensation Strategy

Grounded in compensation best practices and cooperative principles, Foundations Consulting helps organizations create a future-focused compensation strategy to help recruit, retain and recognize great performers and top talent.

Leverage Compensation
Job Pay Data

Establishing competitive pay levels increases employee retention and engagement. Our Compensation Consultants partner with individual cooperatives to obtain compensation survey data specific to your industry and location, and leverage that data to establish pay levels. 

  • Conduct expert analysis of base and variable pay data

  • Recommend individual pay levels

  • Strategically assess overall pay trends for management consideration

Variable Pay Programs

Variable compensation programs are created to drive specific results. It is important to ensure they support your cooperative’s strategy and values from the highest to the lowest paid employee.

  • Review current short- and/or long-term variable pay plans for best practices

  • Facilitate discussion with senior leaders and/or Board members to determine future needs 

  • Create customized variable pay plans based on organizational needs

Retention Plan Design

Organizational changes can result in job changes, and as a result coops may find themselves in a position where they need to retain a specific individual for a defined amount of time. Maybe it’s to ensure completion of a significant project or transfer critical knowledge to others in the organization prior to retiring.

  • Partner to create customized approach

  • Provide guidance on award amounts

  • Facilitate conversations on various scenarios and options

Training for Managers and Board Members

Compensation training for managers and Board members is based on best practices and tailored to meet your compensation strategy.

In Practice

A supply cooperative in Minnesota had experienced turnover on their senior leadership and was in the process of recruiting a CFO and COO.

Services Provided. We researched and purchased two professional compensation surveys specific to their industry.  We utilized the survey data to identify a market competitive compensation range for the CFO and COO roles.

 

Results. The cooperative hired two highly qualified individuals to fill the CFO and COO roles with the confidence that their compensation packages were market competitive.

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