Every raise was a negotiation. We built the system that answers the question before anyone asks.
A creative agency growing fast, where pay, titles, and promotions were decided by the founders, one conversation at a time.
What we built
people systems
Built to work together.
Good people, growing fast, and no shared answer to "what's next for me?"
The agency was hiring quickly and keeping good people. But every conversation about pay or promotion started from scratch. The founders were the system, deciding case by case, from memory and instinct.
Compensation wasn't the problem. Definition was.
There was no shared definition of roles or levels, so there was nothing to measure people against. Pay drifted toward whoever negotiated hardest, and the inequity wasn't sustainable. Reviews happened, but they weren't connected to anything.
Five systems, built in sequence.
Each one depends on the one before it.
Job descriptions
What each role actually owns.
Leveling framework
What growth looks like inside each role.
Salary bands
A pay range for every level, built from the market and the firm's own economics.
Performance reviews
A review cycle tied to the levels and goals, not to memory.
Bonus framework
Rewards connected to the outcomes the firm actually needs.
Growth stopped being a negotiation.
- Raises follow a published logic, not a negotiation.
- "What does it take to get promoted?" has a written answer.
- Pay decisions are defensible to the team and to finance.
Working on a problem like this?
Book a call