Incentive Plan Assessment

This is a more detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the plan, combined with more specific recommendations for change. 

The fact finding phase of the assessment involves a combination of the following:

§  Review of plan documents and communication documents

§  Review of organization charts, job descriptions, and documents explaining the sales strategy

§  Analysis of historical pay and performance data to investigate participation, incentive pay dispersion, composition of incentive pay, correlation of pay and performance, and systematic bias

§  A limited number of interviews with stakeholders in business leadership, sales management, HR, finance, and marketing.  These interviews clarify the business objectives to be reflected in the plan, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the current plan, and ways in which the plan needs to change

§  A brief web survey of the entire sales force to gather quantitative data on the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the plan, as well as suggestions for change

§  Analysis of total compensation, salary, target incentive, and actual incentive between roles and relative to market pay levels

Following the fact finding, we prepare and present a report that explains the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and the analysis supporting our conclusions.  We then go one step further to present high-level first-pass plan designs.  These high-level plan designs include for each role:  total target cash compensation, salary incentive mix and upside, performance measures, incentive form, and timing of measurement and payment.  They do not include detailed plan mechanics and costing.  Furthermore, since the plan designs are a first pass, they do not represent a final recommendation.  We would expect modifications to the recommendations in the detailed design phase.