Case Study: Strategic Compensation and Benefits Advisory Services

Background

Provided strategic compensation and benefits advisory services for an international asset management firm that has gone through restructuring.

Objectives

Assessing pay competitiveness against latest market data to facilitate compensation and bonus recommendations for the new cycle.

Understanding market benefit levels and emerging trends to strategically balance cost and benefits value for better talent attraction and retention.

Ensuring the employee handbook reflects changes on benefits items after restructuring; employment conditions and company policies were clearly stated and complied with regulatory requirements.

Key Features / Process

1. Compensation Benchmarking:

Conducted job matching for key positions and employees. Due to uniqueness of some roles, cross reference was made to market data in multiple functions to ensure data robustness.

Compared Fixed Pay, Cash Bonus, Long-term Incentives and Total Compensation against the market low quartile, median and high quartile of target comparator groups. This included Pay Mix and Compensation Positioning Analysis among senior management, front office and back office.

Provided Compensation Distribution Analysis for identifying if there was any outlier within the benchmark group. This helped analyze the market spread of pay levels and understand client's current positioning.

2. Benefits Benchmarking:

Benchmarked current benefit items and employment conditions against selected comparator group.

Compared current benefit levels with the market levels (including low quartile, median and high quartile)

Conducted gap analysis, identified key areas of change and provided recommendations.

3. Insurance Brokerage:

Solicited quotations from 3 insurance companies; compared products and negotiated pricing.

4. Updating Employee Handbook:

Reviewed and updated the handbook to reflect benefit changes; ensured employment conditions and other company requirements were in line with the latest regulatory requirements.