Frequently Asked Questions
Compensation Consulting FAQ
What is a compensation consultant?
A compensation consultant looks at all aspects of the compensation packages you are currently implementing for staff at your organization. Their focus moves beyond direct compensation (like salaries) to indirect compensation, including benefits, incentives, and equity. A compensation consultant might evaluate your current compensation system and find areas for improvement where you can remain more competitive in your industry when looking to attract talent. Their process can also help to retain talent by better communicating with staff their worth to your company. This could mean implementing a new system or touchpoints to highlight their total compensation (a combination of direct and indirect compensation).
Do I need a compensation consultant?
Compensation consulting can never hurt a business and almost always improves circumstances, even if a company thinks they don’t need this kind of consulting. Outdated packages or those that fail to consider employees’ concerns, like work-life balance, can hurt your business, potentially making your employees feel undervalued. While compensation is typically associated with take-home pay, it’s evolved to include much more. Many compensation packages focus on rewards like enhanced benefits, training credits, or stock options. If your compensation options don’t have direct and indirect compensation, a compensation consultant can work with you to determine the most important factors for employees.
What businesses need compensation consulting?
Various businesses can benefit from compensation consulting. Most notably, those in higher-competition industries turn to compensation consultants to understand how to attract the right talent to their organization. Retaining your current talent by showcasing your investment in them is also a considerable benefit. However, any business, from small enterprises to large conglomerates, should have some kind of compensation review or consultation to keep their employees engaged and happy. Demonstrating your overall investment in employees shows them that you are committed to their happiness and quality of life both within and outside your organization.
Leadership Consulting FAQ
What do leadership development consultants do?
Leadership development consultants have a keen eye for areas where leadership can be improved or refined. Organizations are alive with various roles that contribute to change and success. Leaders often influence these factors, creating the guidance needed to move things forward. As a result, it’s important to invest in these individuals and their constant learning. Rarely are two leaders in an organization the same, let alone from business to business.
As a result, leadership development consultants look at priorities at high and low levels. They examine what is working well and where gaps need to be bridged. When you hire the True North HR team, we work to understand your concerns before we start putting a plan together. Collaboration is important to us, meaning we understand your concerns from the root and avoid making assumptions. From there, we can use our knowledge and data to develop strategies that will make a difference.
What does executive coaching include?
Executive coaching involves working with individuals to determine areas where they can improve their skills to become more effective and progressive in their roles. Numerous factors make a good leader, but not all leaders possess the same qualities or traits. Executive coaching identifies where improvements can be made and fundamental qualities can be universally implemented and understood. This process might include highlighting communication or leadership styles and identifying goals that would make a difference regarding an organization’s leadership.
Who can use leadership consulting?
Any organization can benefit from leadership consulting. We believe leaders should constantly strive for betterment and invest in their learning journey. Leadership consulting can ensure leadership can adapt and improve while maintaining a standard of excellence. Leaders can help drive success in even the most challenging times, so reviewing your leadership team’s skills and potential areas for improvement can make a significant difference.
Organizational Design Consulting FAQ
How do I align my business strategy with my people strategy?
Short and simply, it starts with placing the right people into the right positions. This is where an effective vetting and recruitment strategy element comes into play, as well as harnessing the capabilities of your in-house specialists. By setting up individual employees for success, you can inform your business strategy and help shape a brighter future.
How do we scale well?
There are really two different kinds of scale: one version that dictates what is needed and another that is built on the foundation of employee perspectives. Expecting to double your income in one year is going to add needless pressure to your team if you don’t invest in and support them, for example, whereas the data and feedback they provide could instead help to inform more realistic roadmaps that everyone can get onboard with. In addition, valuing employee feedback and not letting critical issues fall by the wayside, even if they appear insignificant to higher-ups, can go a very long way.
Are there any process inefficiencies that need to be addressed?
Insufficient training, vetting, and/or onboardings are some of the most prominent risks to the modern business. The same goes for process and/or task bloat, performance inefficiencies and/or improper use of internal resources, a lack of employee motivation or positive morale, and any operational changes that do not first consult in-house perspectives and feedback-related data.
What structural changes do I need to make to support our strategy?
This will vary depending on your operational specifics, the compliances you need to adhere to and, most notably, the precise needs of your employees in all departments. We can help you with this by analyzing available data and guiding you on appropriate courses of action that will make life better for all within your business.
Recruitment FAQ
How do I find the best talent for my business?
Your organization’s needs are unique; no two operations are precisely the same. Regardless of the product or service you offer, it’s important to rely on the individuals you trust to fill roles at all levels. Our staffing and recruitment services are ideal for distilling the essence of your operations, refining talent acquisition and retention strategies, and making life better for your employees. This means less guesswork, more legwork, and more success for you and your candidates.
How do I vet candidates?
Before even seeing a resume, vetting prospective hires requires developing a deep understanding of the role you wish to fill. That’s what we do first at True North HR, as the insights gained help to inform any refinements made to your recruitment processes. Once we have a solid understanding of what you need in terms of credentials, experience, and personality traits, we can formulate a compelling posting that better caters to pools of applicants suited for the role(s) in question. After this, we proceed with risk assessments, background checks, screening interviews, and other vetting-related processes.
What are the benefits of professional recruitment services?
Our goal is to minimize risk and maximize the reward for your operations and employees. That means fostering a supportive, enriching, and positive workplace culture, which can be achieved through our advisory services, feasibility studies, and other unique means. Professional recruitment services are also handy for streamlining your organization’s recruiting, vetting, and hiring processes, ensuring that new hires get the onboarding, training, and continued support they deserve with no questions left unasked. In addition, our services make it possible to personalize the employee experience within your walls – all while formulating a welcoming and attractive brand image for prospective hires from the outside.
How long does the typical hiring process take?
This varies depending on a myriad of factors. First, there’s the complexity of the role itself; do you require more experience, special certification, or the need to adhere to strict compliances that govern your operations? Also, what about performance expectations in alignment with compensation and benefits? Are these offerings attractive to the higher-level talent you seek to attract and retain? In addition, how much work is needed to modernize or completely overhaul your recruitment, vetting, onboarding, training, and talent retention strategies? The complete process could take anywhere from several weeks to even a few months, depending on the roadblocks or hurdles faced along the way, though our services aim to make improvements within your organization that lead to even more significant time and cost efficiency.
What are the recruitment steps?
There are several necessary steps along the way, each encompassing certain practices, protocols, and processes that must be kept flexible and scalable with your operations to ensure they remain viable. Examples of such steps include the following:
- Identification of hiring needs, role responsibilities, and feasibility of the position in alignment with operating costs and available resources
- Advisory and optimizations/refinements to established internal processes (if needed)
- Creation of a compelling, relevant job posting that provides candidates with all the context and insights required to make an informed decision on their end
- The influx of applications, followed by screening and vetting prior to interview outreach
- Initial interview outreach/scheduling with applicants who pass the vetting
- Deliberations and advisory on which applicants should proceed onto the next round
- Secondary and, if applicable, tertiary interview stages
- Presentation of offer after final deliberations on the best-received candidates
- Employee onboarding, training, and active support to ensure maximum chances of success
- Analysis of recruitment strategy/feasibility studies to determine whether changes need to be made to processes or overall approach for future hires
