Building Fair and Equitable Employee Compensation with GoodUnited

Charleston-based GoodUnited offers social media fundraising tools that help nonprofits raise money on social media. While the company is very customer-driven, doing everything in its power to help nonprofits connect with donors and raise the awareness and funds they need to further their causes, GoodUnited also knows the importance of investing in its own employees, too. In fact, one of the business’ values is, “Fiercely take care of each other and our families.”

That’s why it’s no surprise that the business hired William “Bill” Haig to be the company’s Vice President of Operations. Upon starting his new role at GoodUnited, Bill got right to work expanding his team and building out new People processes. “My team’s role is to make sure that GoodUnited remains one of the best places to work so that our people can go out and help our nonprofit clients accomplish their missions and change the world for the better,” explains Bill. 

But, the company’s size quickly outpaced the scale of its people management practices when it jumped from 30 employees to 55 in just a year. “At the time, we were decent at OKRs and we were attempting, but not excelling at, having regular 1:1s. We didn’t have the right channels for open feedback, engagement and pulse surveys, or 360-degree reviews,” says Bill. “A lot of these factors were manager dependent because we didn’t have a documented system or processes in place.” 

To help, Bill and his team started brainstorming ways to add more structure and scalability to the company’s People processes. They decided they needed a new HR software platform that could help the company build a culture of ongoing feedback while embracing continuous performance management. Per a colleague’s recommendation, Bill found Lattice and was immediately wowed by its employee 1:1s tool and 360-degree review features. “Lattice was just so dead-on to what we were looking for that it felt like we built it ourselves,” admits Bill. “We tore through the People Strategy book written by one of Lattice’s Founders and we were sold.” 

One of the leading reasons they chose Lattice? “We got the sense Lattice would grow with us and was committed to our future,” says Bill. “We haven’t been disappointed. Lattice continues to add features that are exactly what we need.” So, when Lattice unveiled Lattice Compensation, Bill and his team knew it was just the tool they needed in their HR tech stack. 

Just a few months before, Bill and his team ran their first compensation review for the company’s 50+ employees — manually. “We didn't realize what an animal compensation was until we really dove into it. It was organized chaos,” Bill says. “We manually updated compensation information for 50 employees. We had to verify that compensation and performance information was up to date while ensuring the wrong sheet or email wasn’t shared with the wrong person.” 

Aside from ensuring the process was private and secure, Bill also had to triple-check the accuracy of all employee information in 50 separate Google Sheets and ensure all pay adjustments were fair.​ “When you’re dealing with someone's pay, messing up a number here or a digit there can be catastrophic — and that's on top of the already complex piece of making sure someone had a fair review, determining their compensation increase, and making sure it correlates with performance,” he says. 

While the People Ops team successfully completed the review, they knew running it manually again was out of the question — both for their sanity and the fact that it would be impractical as the company continues to grow. Not to mention, the review took up so much of the team’s time that they didn’t have the opportunity to explain the rationale behind compensation increases and give employees the transparency and clarity around the pay they deserved.

Since GoodUnited was already using Lattice for engagement surveys, career growth, people analytics, and performance reviews, it only made sense to add Lattice Compensation into the mix as well. “Basically, we knew where we wanted our People processes to be, but we didn’t fully know how to get there, states Bill. “That is until we found Lattice.” 

Using Lattice at GoodUnited

When Bill and his team started implementing Lattice, GoodUnited’s next performance review was only a few months away — far too soon to onboard a new platform, train employees on how to use it, and successfully administer both performance and compensation reviews. But the Lattice team assured him it was more than possible. 

The thought of never having to manually run a compensation review again was too enticing for Bill and his team, who took Lattice up on the challenge. “It was two and a half months from signing the contract to running a full 360-degree and compensation review. It's something that was very well received by our organization and that our team was proud to put our name on.  Had you told me in November that we were going to complete a full 360-degree review with almost no hiccups by February, I would've told you ‘there's no way,’” exclaims Bill.

While Bill was worried about whether employees would take to the new system, he had nothing to fear. Lattice’s team and its robust resource library gave him all the support he needed to train employees on the platform and win their buy-in ahead of reviews. “The biggest thing for us was getting our team members bought-in and trained. Lattice was phenomenal with this,” says Bill. “First and foremost, its prebuilt decks designed for every stakeholder made it easy to brief our employees. Plus, the Lattice team was so willing to hop on any calls and demos we hosted to get our organization trained up.”

The quick onboarding and employee training paid off, since GoodUnited employees loved how easy the Lattice platform is to use. Aside from usability, Bill says the platform’s biggest benefit is its ability to bring together all of their People data in one place and help prioritize continuous performance management for the entire company. “Lattice connects all our feedback, 360-degree reviews, and one-on-one data so our people can see the big picture of their overall performance — like how they're being measured and how it ties back to their compensation,” shares Bill. “The benefits of this functionality are for our employees first and foremost, not the organization, which isn’t always the case with HR software.” 

To further benefit employees, the company also rolled out Lattice Grow to help add transparency and clarity around career and growth opportunities within the organization — an addition that was highly sought after by employees. “We didn’t have anything in place before Grow, which was one of the biggest pain points of our team members. We had high performers who didn’t know where they were going in the organization, how to get there, or even how they were being evaluated,” says Bill. “Team members had to take the company's word that as they grew roles would be created or opened up within the organization. It made it hard for team members to visualize how to grow within the company.”

While Bill and his team are still building out competencies and career tracks within the tool, they’re aiming to launch a full rollout in just a few months. This tool, alongside Lattice 1:1s, Feedback, Reviews, Compensation, and Goals, will ensure every GoodUnited employee has the resources they need to take ownership of their careers and prioritize their professional growth.

Impact of Lattice

Thanks to Lattice, GoodUnited employees now have a holistic view of not only their individual performance, but also the career opportunities available to them within the organization. “Lattice has done a phenomenal job of helping us create clarity and transparency in team members' lives. Our employees now have a way to see where they stand and how they can grow within the organization,” says Bill. “They also have multiple channels they can use to give feedback to other team members and the organization as a whole, so we can all continue to get better together,” he adds.

While Lattice has clearly made an impact on GoodUnited employees, Bill and his team have also benefited immensely from the platform. To start, they love that all of their People tools live in one place. “Each Lattice tool is capable of being its own standalone product, so you're not sacrificing quality to consolidate. Instead, you’re taking the best solutions possible and bringing them together in one place. That’s been a home run for us,” shares Bill. “We're not having people bounce from solution to solution and asking them to retrain and learn new processes. It all just lives in Lattice.”

The beauty of a people success platform means all of their People data lives in one place too. “We love the data Lattice gives us. It helps our team really show the value of some of these solutions,” says Bill. “Plus, it allows us to tie things like employee Net Promoter Score, sentiment, or survey results back to specific employee characteristics, like compensation and tenure. That helps us find unique insights we can use to make the organization better. That was just too powerful of a resource to pass up,” he adds.

Plus, Bill and his team have been able to save their time and sanity by putting manual compensation review processes on autopilot. With Lattice Compensation, the team has been able to ditch Google Sheets and seamlessly incorporate performance data in their compensation review process. “Lattice’s Compensation tool just aligns with so much of what we are doing and where we want to go. It takes everything we were doing in spreadsheets across multiple platforms and consolidates it to one easy-to-use location,” Bill shares. “It also creates more clarity and transparency around the process for our employees and managers, helping my team tell a cleaner story by linking aspects of compensation back to performance.” 

Plus, the tool has helped the company get closer to achieving its goal of fair and transparent compensation increases. “This last performance cycle, Lattice Compensation helped us award pay adjustments in a fair way to make sure that someone was getting the increase or movement that they deserved. That was really, really hard to do when we were running reviews manually.  It’s helped us make those big changes and recommendations in a fair, easier, more reliable, and consistent way,” says Bill.

Lattice hasn’t only helped Bill automate compensation reviews, but it’s also helped him scale programs and processes at a rate he previously thought was impossible with only three People professionals on his team. When Bill tells other industry professionals about the work they’ve done, he’s often met with disbelief. “I have a business coach who has 35+ years of HR experience at a major corporation and some of the things we roll out she just cannot believe,” shares Bill. “She says things like ‘Bill that would take a large team an entire year to roll out!’ While I’ll just respond ‘We’ve got Lattice.’ It's a massive force multiplier for us.” 

But the Lattice platform can’t take all the credit. Lattice’s team have immensely helped the GoodUnited team setup, manage, and scale their People processes from day one. Bill says he’s been blown away with how friendly and helpful the entire Lattice staff are. “Every single person we've worked with from Lattice has been phenomenal. Throughout the sales and onboarding processes to now working with our customer success manager, it literally felt like we've got people who care just as much about our team members as we do. It's honestly like having an additional person on our team who 100% has our back,” he says. 

Still, Bill shares Lattice’s biggest win has been allowing his team to measure and quantify the impact of their new programs and policies. “People operations can often be a very hard-to-measure concept,” Bill admits. “With the Lattice Analytics, we can not only put measurable business metrics around the changes we’re making, but we can also ensure every voice is being heard — not just the extroverts or the loudest people in the room.” He adds, “Together, all of the Lattice tools create a world-class solution for helping us to keep our culture a competitive advantage.”

Takeaways

• Lattice has been a “force multiplier” for the GoodUnited team, allowing them to scale their People programs and achieve more than they thought possible with a three-person team.
• Lattice Compensation has allowed the GoodUnited team to tie compensation to performance and improve transparency and clarity around pay increases. 
• Lattice has given GoodUnited’s employees greater visibility into their individual performance and growth opportunities within the organization.
• With the company’s People data in one central spot, the People Ops team can measure the impact of their initiatives and take action to ensure the company remains a great place to work.
• Lattice had GoodUnited running their first review cycle within the platform after only three weeks.