The Challenge: Finding a Comprehensive Solution That Could Be Implemented Quickly

A major tobacco corporation with a headcount of over 7,000 employees, this PeopleFluent customer wanted a solution that could drive discretionary decision-making down to their front-line managers during the organization's compensation planning process. Its current HRIS solution was highly prescriptive. The team was forced to work around this rigidity using a spreadsheet—a stopgap solution that would be difficult to scale beyond the 400 employees it had started with.

Recognizing the need for a tool that could handle planning for the remaining 95% of employees, the organization’s Senior Manager of Compensation began scouting for potential vendors to handle the task. He was aware that the company used PeopleFluent’s Org Charting solution, and he also had experience with the PeopleFluent Compensation tool from his role at a previous company.

The main consideration for a new compensation management tool was finding something that could be implemented quickly. With existing knowledge of the PeopleFluent compensation tool already in the organization, it was the obvious choice. This would allow the company to remain efficient and agile during the transition period while also using the new tool to plan for its upcoming compensation cycle.

The Solution: A Flexible, Configurable Compensation Management Solution

It was decided PeopleFluent’s compensation management solution could support the needs of the company’s people just as well as it could the company’s business needs. In addition to using the solution to manage executive compensation planning, PeopleFluent offered the necessary flexibility and configurability to handle broad-based compensation management for an additional 3,800 employees.

Furthermore, PeopleFluent Compensation would allow the company’s compensation team to quickly share new ideas on different compensation plans without involving their IT department or other resources.

The Results: Increased Agility in the Compensation Planning Process

As the tobacco company’s team began the annual compensation planning process for the first time with the PeopleFluent tool, it also enlisted the help of its HR business partners to take a hybrid approach. Rather than having each manager use a worksheet, the HR business partners assisted in the planning process while helping the rest of the team familiarize itself with the tool. Because they feel it is so easy to use, the team has decided each manager will use the compensation tool to manage their workflows in future planning cycles.

One of the biggest challenges of using spreadsheets was managing the company’s three-year overlapping long-term incentive plan (LTIP) for executives, which proved very manual and mundane. PeopleFluent Compensation automates this process without the need for spreadsheets or IT team involvement.

When it comes to the question of value, it’s all about the time and resources saved by using PeopleFluent’s compensation tool. Projects that would usually take two or three months and require the help of an IT worker can now be done quickly and efficiently by the compensation team.

Employees are also enjoying the increased transparency and now have the ability to see detailed breakdowns of their pay and incentives without needing to contact the HR customer service line. Managers have enjoyed using the tool—feedback has focused on how the tool is “much simpler than they thought it would be.”