Our Professional Services Practice
Professional services firms ARE their people – the partners, consultants and associates who serve clients, create intellectual capital and market the firms’ services. Whether your focus is management consulting, law, engineering, advertising or executive search, your success depends on whether individuals at all levels behave in ways that support the firm’s goals.
SAMPLE CHALLENGES FROM PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CLIENTS:
“We are losing people to competitors and have heard that compensation may be behind our high turnover.”
“Our end-of-year discussions about distributing the partner bonus pool are
always very contentious.”
“We are not sure that we are driving the right behaviors to grow the business for the long-term.”
“Our compensation system is too complicated – people don’t understand how the program works.“
OUR EXPERTISE
At ThreePoint Consulting, we build our engagements on a solid foundation of experience and proven practice, but take them to a new level with our client-specific focus, customized analysis and creative problem-solving. Our Professional Services clients benefit from the following areas of expertise:
- Compensation Philosophy Development – A clear and well-defined compensation philosophy can serve as a valuable guidepost when designing a compensation system. We can help you identify the purpose of each element of compensation, the degree and types of performance emphasis and the most relevant peers for determining competitive pay positioning.
- Incentive Design – We use a solid understanding of your organization’s priorities and culture to design incentives that reinforce desired behaviors. We can help you balance competing priorities and align short and long-term incentive programs with your organization’s business plan, financial goals and key value drivers.
- Performance Measurement – A critical step in any incentive design process is to select and define the appropriate performance metrics. We use detailed financial analysis and modeling to help you identify the critical financial, operating and market drivers that link to your strategic objectives at the company, division, or individual level.
- Performance Management – Individual performance evaluations can be a vital input into performance-based salary increases, annual bonus payouts, and career progression. We work with you to define desired behaviors and results for each position, draft scaled descriptions of “what it takes” to receive top ratings on each behavior (i.e., calibration), and develop a process for arriving at a final evaluation.
- Competitive Pay Benchmarking – Getting the level of pay right is a crucial factor in attracting and retaining top talent. We can provide you with relevant data that enables intentional, informed decisions regarding pay levels.
- Pay/Performance Calibration – In addition to understanding competitive pay levels, it is essential to determine what performance warrants this level of compensation. We can help you evaluate the competitiveness of your annual performance goals and ensure that they are aligned with shareholder expectations.
- Change Management and Implementation – We can support the successful rollout of your compensation changes by helping you create an implementation plan and by developing communication materials and modeling tools to help employees understand plan mechanics and rationale.
- Firm Ownership Provisions – In professional services firms, firm ownership can often be an important part of the total rewards package for owners. We can help you determine the appropriate criteria for becoming a firm owner, how ownership should be distributed, and how buyback provisions should be structured.
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