By Bob Brady, BLR Founder and CEO

Compensation planners have another tool for identifying executive compensation issues, courtesy of WorldatWork, an association of HR professionals focused on attracting, motivating, and retaining employees.

The tool is a web-based assessment device that helps practitioners consider all factors so they can focus their efforts on designing plans that support business strategy. It was written and designed by a team of practitioners from a number of well-known employers, assisted by two compensation consultants from Worldatwork.

In introducing the online tool, Don Linder, a WorldatWork staff member, said, "It doesn't provide specific guidance on impact because these vary a great deal between companies. The factors to be considered don't vary, however. This tool ensures that compensation professionals will identify and consider pertinent questions."

Linder said he "wished he had had the tool" several years ago when he was working on a program and was completely surprised when the CFO torpedoed it because of one of its features. "I didn't know about the problem, and this tool would have alerted me to the risk," he said.

Linder said the online tool is available to all. It can be found at: http://www.worldatwork.org/execcomptool.

WorldatWork plans to encourage users to add links to reference materials (case studies, white papers, educational materials, etc.) To ensure accuracy, linked material will be reviewed, vetted, and selected by a panel of executive rewards experts from Fortune 500 companies.

The tool appears to be a simple, elegant device. It opens into four boxes, captioned, Internal Development, Stakeholders, External Development, and Disclosure and Transparency. Each of these has three to six subtopics. The user then clicks on one of these to be taken to detailed questions.

The tool was unveiled at WorldatWork's Total Rewards Conference in Orlando.