Outcome-Based Roles & Incentives, Talent Solutions Provider

The Situation

A national talent-solutions and outplacement business, organised across country and regional leadership, key accounts, service delivery and operations — roughly twenty-five distinct positions across six operating bands, from central operations and candidate services through to country management. Roles and goals had grown organically with the business, and the incentive structure hadn't kept pace: without a consistent way to define what "good" looked like at each level, reward risked tracking activity and tenure rather than the outcomes the business actually needed.

The Approach

We built the role and goal structure around five pillars for success, deliberately ordered so that financial performance sat alongside — not above — the outcomes it was meant to produce.

Purpose, Strategy & Capability

Working with purpose, shaping the future, building the capability to accomplish it.

Growth & Innovation

Growth in services, technology and process, leveraging core purpose to enable future impact.

Customer Experience

Working inclusively, with the courage to partner with the people the business serves.

Sustainable

Continuous improvement in services, process, safety and wellbeing.

Social & Business Impact

Strong financial returns and genuine impact on the customers, clients and stakeholders served.

Generic, high-level role and goal templates were built for every band, from country and regional executive leadership down through account, delivery and operations roles — each with specific expectations against all five pillars, so a consultant and a country manager were being measured on the same underlying logic, calibrated to their level of impact.

The Delivery

The incentive plan design paired a financial gate with individual accountability, rather than relying on either alone:

60% — Financial measureWeighted to gross profit against the annual operating unit profit plan. No incentive below 80% of plan; full target incentive at 100%, capped at 120%.

40% — Individual KPIsAssessed on a 1–5 scale against the role's specific objectives and metrics, with level 3 set as the target incentive level.

Protection thresholdA profit-cover ratio of 2.5× total individual incentive, so the incentive pool never outran the profit it was meant to reward.

Roles carrying direct selling accountability retained their commission structure on top of this framework, rather than having it replaced — keeping the design additive to what already worked rather than disruptive to it.

The Outcome

17+

Distinct roles rebuilt on outcome-based goals and KPI templates.

Value streams and bands, from central operations to country leadership, on one consistent structure.

60/40

Split between financial gate and individually assessed contribution, protecting against reward for activity alone.

Pillars connecting every role's goals back to financial and social impact together.

“Strong and sustainable financial returns to the business are vital — and ultimately our work has a genuine social and financial impact on the customers, clients and stakeholders we support and serve.”

From the business's five pillars for success