By 2021, battery materials innovator Sila had filed more than 200 patents, driven the commercial launch of its anode materials to power one of the most advanced fitness wearables on the market, and was on the way to breaking ground on a new North America plant.
However, this success and growth was not without its issues. The compensation management software the company relied on in early stages was not equipped to support its rapid growth and expansion, especially as its workforce became increasingly diverse with additional executives and managers. The red-hot job market also put pressure on Sila’s existing compensation plan. “There was a lot of competition for talent, and we know that workers were looking for competitive salaries and wages,” says Masha Rakhlin, People Lead at Sila. They expected that declines could become a problem, and wanted to stay in front of it.
“We realized that we would benefit from experts who understood compensation, who could educate us and help transition our model to one that would allow us to anticipate and model potential issues.”
Recommendations from peers led Sila directly to OpenComp’s compensation management software. The company’s needs ranged from burn modeling, to messaging, to salary ranges, to manager training – and OpenComp could help with it all.
“OpenComp understood right away. We needed help modeling equity burn, setting pay ranges, and developing training for our managers. OpenComp delivered on everything. They taught us how to think about compensation through their comp management software.”
Sila worked with OpenComp to refresh its entire compensation system. Together, the partners used market data to reset Sila’s levels, develop salary ranges, and establish career progressions. These changes created a manageable, scalable, and transparent compensation strategy for Sila on OpenComp’s platform.
Sila’s compensation practices, once more manual, now provide stability and consistency with operational ease. Kate Martin, VP of People & Culture at Sila, says, “The framework provides the transparency and structure that we need to engage our employees and scale efficiently.” With the help of OpenComp, the company increased its headcount by 36%, hiring 90 people over just two quarters.
“Our compensation framework went from sufficient to scalable because of the work we did with OpenComp.”
Using OpenComp as its compensation management software not only helped enable growth from an operational perspective – it also helped boost recruiting. When Sila and OpenComp partnered, Sila was concerned about future dips in its ability to close candidate offers given the competitive market environment. “OpenComp helped with that,” Demetrius Wallace, Sila's Head of Talent explained.
“Our offer competitiveness was an important payoff from our work with OpenComp. Even in a tough market, we were able to improve our acceptance rate to 85% using OpenComp’s software.”
With OpenComp’s help, Sila not only developed a data-driven framework that is easy to explain and understand, they also generated messaging and training to educate employees about changes – which have transformed Sila’s company culture. “Now, anyone who wants to come and talk about their compensation can – and we can explain it,” Martin says. “We use a framework that is aligned with the market, and we’re able to communicate that very transparently. That builds trust.”
“OpenComp’s value-add was providing education to us that we could use with others. The conversation around compensation has become a lot healthier since we made the changes. We can show any employee the reasoning behind their earnings.”
.svg)
