Compensation success in logistics

Attracting talent with innovative Long-Term Incentives (LTI)

This global logistics and mail company is one of the largest and most influential in the world, with a vast workforce spanning hundreds of countries and territories. Its operations generate tens of billions in Euros in annual revenue and encompass a wide range of services, including parcel delivery, express shipping, freight transportation, supply chain management, and e-commerce logistics. Known for its innovation and global reach, the company places a strong emphasis on building a high-performing and people-focused culture.

Challenge

Facing challenges of accuracy and compliance

As part of its ongoing digital transformation of Human Resources, the company had centralized many Compensation & Benefits processes. Yet many processes still were being handled in spreadsheets, causing data challenges of accuracy, protection, and auditability. This also presented process challenges related to workflow management, scalability, and inefficiency. For example, accruals for management incentives was a huge manual process based on Excel, which was labor-intensive and expensive, and posed significant compliance risks.

Competing for talent

At the same time, to address a competitive labor market, there was a strategic board decision to expand their Long-Term Incentives Program in order to retain people below the executive level. This meant enabling the HR team to manage LTIs for hundreds of thousands of employees. 

Facing system limitations

Managing compensation in a holistic way was hampered by limited analytical capabilities and little or no ability to simulate plans and bonuses, which made it difficult for Finance to properly accrue for bonuses.

Finally, there was no platform in place that could provide a consolidated view of HR costs for all employees in over 200+ countries, limiting visibility and control.

Solution

Optimizing global compensation processes with beqom

To automate and optimize their global compensation processes, multiple key divisions of the company acquired beqom’s Total Compensation Management solution. Formerly manual processes for salary planning, salary reviews, bonuses, and long-term incentives now are handled on a centralized, automated platform that provides the ability to simulate, manage, and analyze all forms of compensation.

With beqom, all the compensation data is on one unified platform, providing one version of the truth, with full transparency and auditability worldwide. A rules-based approach ensures that compensation calculations are performed consistently and accurately. Workflow drives the processes, and simulations allow for compensation planning and accruals.

HR manages the system, without needing to depend on their IT department, and now has access to powerful analytic tools.

An award-winning global shares program

Prior to beqom, the company’s long-term incentives were managed in Excel, but this was not sustainable from a governance, risk, and compliance perspective, as it was a large amount of money being paid out without adequate controls and auditability. beqom enabled centralized control that was rules-driven and transparent. And beqom provided a platform that could scale for future expansion of the program.

Initially, its Performance Share Plan (PSP) was limited to several thousand top executives. Grants were made annually, with a four-year holding period, with beqom managing accruals and payouts, and handling mobility issues. Employees in countries that do not allow employee equity ownership could opt for phantom shares. beqom also provided analytics and compliance reporting.

Extending the opportunity for ownership to all employees

In subsequent years, the company introduced a program to expand the reach of its share programs to attract, engage, and retain talent across a wide range of roles throughout the organization.

To scale the program to handle volumes over 100,000 employees, it adopted a decentralized administration model in beqom, whereby an automated process assigns local administrators, while maintaining centralized visibility and control. Employees can buy shares discounted by 15% or more on a quarterly basis, with no holding period.

Winning recognition for innovative LTI technology

This innovative “democratization” of share ownership, combined with the effective use of technology utilizing the beqom platform, was recognized by the Global Equity Organization (GEO), who awarded the firm the GEO Best Use of Technology award.

According to GEO, “The Best Use of Technology award is granted to companies that develop and/or implement innovative, appropriate, and comprehensive technological solutions for share plan administration, communication, and internal project management.” 

beqom automates and manages accruals and payout processes, integrating with Finance and the company’s banking solution. beqom enables modeling and simulation directly within the compensation system, to assist with planning and forecasting. As GEO stated, “By automating processes and ensuring compliance with local regulations, the system optimizes efficiency while providing a user-friendly experience for employees.”

Benefits

Efficiency, consistency, and transparency in compensation, in the hands of HR

By utilizing beqom’s Total Compensation Management solution, this company now has:

• A global, unified total compensation platform that features efficiency, accuracy, and visibility.
• An award-winning, company-wide global shares program that serves as a competitive advantage to attract talent and engender loyalty.
• A centralized, rules-based platform that provides the controls and traceability required for compliance.
• The ability to simulate compensation plans, bonuses, LTIs, and accruals, and comprehensively analyze compensation.
• A system that can be maintained by HR, enabling flexibility and quick changes.
• A future-proof platform that can consolidate all compensation processes worldwide.