Data by Connery — The people behind Hiringplan.io’s market data.

Connery Consulting is a premier HR consulting firm for venture-backed companies and provider of the compensation market data that powers Hiringplan.io. Read on to learn more about Connery and their thoughtful, data-driven approach to compensation strategy.

Connery Consulting has been a compensation, recruiting, and HR resource for venture-backed startups for over a decade. We’ve consulted with portfolio companies from Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Greylock, Sequoia and Index (and many others) on pay and equity strategies with clients ranging in size, stage of financing, and growth. Through that work, we’ve collected a proprietary data set representing the compensation details of today’s fastest-growing technology companies. Through our partnership with the LTSE we’ve recently made that data available as a powerful tool for any entrepreneur who wants to develop a strategic compensation program.

Our clients’ pay details are the truest representation of compensation within Silicon Valley. As part of our data collection process, we partner with our clients to provide the most accurate and appropriate benchmarking and leveling, ensuring the highest level of data accuracy. In short, if you want a fact-based view into how compensation decisions shape a technology company’s growth, our data gives you the clearest picture possible.

“Compensation is a numbers game”

Founders and recruiters at fast-paced tech startups rarely see a meeting on the calendar titled “Discuss Compensation Philosophy.” When you’re busy building a team, most of the day is spent simply searching for great candidates and getting them in the door, while high-level conversations about compensation strategy get cut short. At Connery Consulting, we’re working to bring those conversations out into the open and share compensation insights that benefit companies, employees, and candidates alike.

Compensation is important for reasons far beyond our paychecks: It’s a budgeting priority, a competitive consideration, and a key factor in each employee’s happiness, motivation, and desire to stay. There’s no perfect science to tell you what compensation strategy is right for your company, but since compensation involves numbers, we can look to data to help set baselines and make informed decisions.

“Fortunately, compensation is a numbers game, which means we can use data to set baselines and make informed decisions.”

When you’re in high-volume hiring mode, you’re focused on solving short-term problems to build your team as quickly as possible. You might face challenges like candidates with competing offers, or those who want more cash than equity. In an effort to on-board talent efficiently, it’s common to speed through compensation decisions and, in doing so, set yourself up for problems down the road.

We advise companies to reframe compensation decisions by looking at their organization as a whole and using factual data to understand a) where they are as a business and b) what they need to do to keep moving in the right direction. Instead of hiring by asking “What compensation package do I need to offer to close this candidate right away?”, we recommend talking through questions like:

• What companies have been in our position before? Whose success are we striving to emulate, and how did they compensate employees at this stage of growth?
• What are our goals as a business? What data can we look at from companies that represent our goals, and how can we use that data to set milestones and formulate our own long-term compensation plan?
• How did those companies balance cash, equity, and other perks? What were the lasting implications of their decisions, and what can we learn?

These questions are complex, but they can be answered with hard facts that bring clarity and confidence to your company’s overarching compensation philosophy. When your employees ask how you made compensation decisions, you’ll be able to give them a transparent, informed response. Most importantly, when you’ve got quality insights to support your strategy, you’ll know you’re building your business the right way and setting the whole organization up for success going forward.

Consistency Is Key

Of course, no plan is going to work if you don’t stick to it. Your compensation philosophy is only as valid as the real-life practices that reflect it, so in order to send the right message to your employees and candidates, you need to be consistent in the logic you rely on to determine compensation for each and every person in your company.

This need for consistency is yet another reason why we encourage high-growth businesses to look at compensation from a data perspective. When you can justify your compensation philosophy by pointing to numbers, trends, and specific milestones you’re trying to hit, it’s easy to have candid conversations with your team about why you made a particular decision and how it fits into a larger strategy to serve the entire organization.

It’s also worth noting that a consistent philosophy is not the same as a consistent process. Your company might have its hiring process down to a science, but that doesn’t mean you’re operating under a consistent set of insights and intentions. Inconsistencies can negatively affect culture, so the sooner you establish and enforce a consistent compensation philosophy, the more headaches you avoid as your company grows.

Good Data Is Good for Everyone

Connery Consulting and LTSE share a common passion for seeing startups and technology companies succeed. With decades of combined experience helping businesses and individuals find their way in the market, we understand the value of having an expansive pool of reliable data to navigate tough decisions, and we believe this information should be shared, discussed, and built upon for everyone’s benefit.

That’s why we’re working to make useful data available to entrepreneurs everywhere. If we can empower each other to build better companies, we’ll be fostering stronger team culture, giving employees a better experience, and elevating our collective potential as an industry and community. We can eliminate guesswork, stop repeating others’ mistakes, and give every startup a better shot at success.

Compensation doesn’t need to come down to hushed conversations between coworkers or hastily-made offers to close a candidate. The data you need to make informed decisions and implement a long-term strategy is available for you to discover. Together with our friends at LTSE, we look forward to seeing what you do with it.

Test drive our latest collaboration for yourself at Hiringplan.io.

Learn more about Hiringplan and other tools from the LTSE.

-