HR Foundation

HR assessments help us to gain insight into how we can help your HR function to achieve its unique goals and provide a solid foundation for your organization’s operations.

We assess each component of your HR function to get a solid understanding of your organization’s inner working, such as your culture, your people, what is working well and any challenges that may exist. We examine best practices in your industry to ensure you have aligned HR with your organization’s future needs and potential changes in the workplace.

When our work is complete, we provide your organization with a roadmap including detailed, prioritized recommendations based on our HR expertise and industry best practices.

As the workplace is a rapidly changing landscape, you may find that you need assistance or temporary help in meeting employees’ needs or achieving your HR goals. We provide assistance, oversight, or project management of HR initiatives, or overall employee support to help you through organizational transition or temporary gaps in staffing.

People are the cornerstone of your organization and you need the right HR talent to help your organization thrive. Having an HR leader that can help your organization navigate the many nuances of the workforce and workplace will allow leadership to focus on the business.

We recognize that finding the right HR talent at the leadership level involves more than matching a skill set. We carefully consider all aspects of your organization to ensure we find you the candidate who has the right skill set and will be a cultural fit, as well as a strategic partner for leadership and staff.

We partner with you to create a customized search and selection strategy that:

• Assesses the strategic and tactical needs of the organization to prioritize organizational needs and key skillsets for the position.
• Identifies leadership competencies and character traits that are aligned with your organization’s culture and values.
• Develops appropriate level(s) for the leadership position(s) and drafts clear, concise job description(s).
• Conducts a compensation analysis to ensure a competitive salary.
• Thoroughly sources, screens, and interviews candidates.
• Checks references and negotiates offers to ensure a smooth hiring and transition process.
• Provides guidance on an effective and successful onboarding program for the selected candidate.

Recruiting and identifying talent is a challenge for all organizations today. Today’s workforce is looking for employers that will help them grow and develop in their careers. Focusing on the employee’s journey and creating programs that will enhance organizational culture and employee engagement is critical.

We work with organizations to create, develop, evaluate, administer, and implement programs to provide a positive employee experience, such as:

• Pre-boarding and onboarding programs
• Career paths and frameworks for success
• Training and development initiatives
• Employee engagement surveys and action plans
• Performance management programs
• Compensation strategy and philosophy on pay

Go to Culture and Employee Engagement for more on the employee experience.

A performance management program is essential for keeping employees on the path to success. We believe the most effective and motivating performance management programs are those that are built in alignment with your culture, your values, and business goals.

To ensure that alignment, we partner with your leadership and staff to create a program that is unique to your needs and vision. This could involve either building a new program for you or enhancing what you have already created and implemented. We work closely with you to:

• Collaborate with leaders, managers, and employees to understand what is important to growth and development.
• Understand how employees want to receive feedback.
• Develop core and job competencies.
• Provide guidance and direction for implementation of a new or revised program.
• Recommend automated systems or platforms to streamline the process or help you better utilize your existing systems.
• Coach, advise, and train managers on how to administer, manage, and conduct effective performance reviews.
• Provide strategies to create a culture of providing feedback and making performance management an ongoing and effective process.

As today’s business environment becomes increasingly competitive, it is crucial that your organization develops and maintains an up-to-date, market-based, compensation program. An effective program provides a framework for attracting, motivating and retaining the best talent and, most importantly, enables your organization to be competitive within your industry.

We collaborate with your team to design custom base salary and incentive compensation plans for executives and staff. tailored to meet your needs. We provide a range of compensation services that typically include the following steps:

• Evaluate your compensation plans to understand the strengths and opportunities for enhancement and growth.
• Conduct market pricing using well-regarded compensation surveys.
• Calculate employee compa-ratios that provide a “first glance” on the market competitiveness of your compensation plans.
• Determine and analyze geographic differentials.
• Develop a market pricing methodology to educate your leadership on the steps involved in creating and maintaining your compensation program.
• Design compensation calculator tools and leveling guides.
• Craft career progression and planning guides.
• Develop position and job family descriptions and frameworks.
• Formulate communication strategies to promote transparency and understanding about pay practices.
• Create incentive compensation plans for executive and staff level.

Having solid, documented policies, procedures, and processes is key to having a streamlined, equitable and functional organization. Compliance is a dynamic facet of HR, as employment laws are ever-changing. It is crucial for organizations to remain compliant with applicable employment laws and regulations to protect both the organization and its employees.

Whether you are building from scratch, doing a complete overhaul, or just making minor upgrades, we provide the resources your organization needs to:

• Create Affirmative Action Plans (AAPs).
• Provide guidance on federal, state and local employment laws.
• Build customized employee handbooks.
• Provide timely state-mandated training.
• Review and make recommendations to integrate new compliance laws into current policies and procedures.
• Assess compensation data to ensure employees are in the proper FSLA classes and federal and state minimum wage requirements are met.
• Review and make recommendations for benefits-related compliance practices for FMLA and COBRA.
• Review employment practices to ensure compliance for protected classes of employees.

M&A is a popular and sustained strategy with organizations of all sizes. We support clients from the research, acquisition, and integration perspectives through all phases of the M&A cycle. We can work with your organization alone, or with both candidate organizations in activities including:

• Due Diligence review and analysis:
  • Employment practices
  • Employment policies
  • HR Compliance
  • Benefits
  • Compensation and career positioning
  • Human Capital Management Systems
  • Phased measurement of success and lessons learned
• Cultural Assessment
  • One-on-one interviews with leadership team members
  • Firmwide cultural assessment surveys
  • Compatibility analysis
  • Cultural assets and opportunities
  • Recommendations and next steps
• HR/Integration Planning
  • Leadership roles and responsibilities
  • Mapping of key actions with timelines
  • Onboarding strategies
  • Position/talent mapping
  • Benefits financial impact review
  • Compensation and career positioning analysis
  • Human Capital Management systems analysis
  • Communications strategy, including content for internal and external communications
  • M&A integration playbook
  • Change management including education and training