Stark HR Magazine Jan/19 | Page 16

hen you do evaluate

compensation, get

the market data ahead of time from your lead VC firm. You want to make sure you’re still competitive, and if you discover you’re lagging, consider a blanket increase across the board.

In addition to providing

competitive salaries for the

market, you should explain what that means to your employees. “What is market when it comes to compensation, and how is it defined? What does it actually mean?” Don’t leave people wondering where you got your data set or how credible you’re being on this issue.

As an early employee, most of the value people should be getting is the increase in the value of their equity as the

company grows. Giving

people performance bumps

will get complicated and potentially unfair fast.

But, the logic follows, if an increase is absolutely necessary, it should come in the form of equity — not base salary.

Don´t leave people wondering where your got your data set or how credible you´re being

Generally speaking, exceptions are a horrible idea because everyone wants to be the exception — and remember, people will find out. It reduces fairness and usually won’t actually make the person who is the exception as happy as you want them to be.

Avoid exceptions

All about growth

Everyone’s energy should be going to equity for a while — nobody should be getting raises unless it’s about getting them up to market rate. If people are working head down to increase the overall value of the company, that increases everyone’s reward, and that should be a good incentive.

Make sure you compare this percentage to market rates to make sure you don’t fall behind — but do keep in mind that equity is not equivalent between companies.

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COMPENSATION