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The Cross Country Group

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Submitted By JimmyBe
Words 3745
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Case Study: The Cross Country Group
Introduction
Sidney Wolk is the founder of The Cross-Country Group which, over the years, he has turned from a small enterprise into one of the largest privately held service companies of its kind in North America. The company mainly operates in the field of roadside and housing services a provider a private label services.
As a deeply involved manager, he leaned towards individuals instead of a formal compensation scheme for many years. When his two sons, Howard and Jeffrey joined the business, they saw the necessity to turn their father’s rather spontaneous and unpredictable compensation style into a more professionalized and transparent approach. This gave rise to the LEAP plan which will be discussed in detail during the course of this case study. While certainly being more sophisticated than the earlier compensation practices, two executive employees, Bruce Henderson and Martin Wong, did not fully agree with the overall concept of the LEAP plan. As part of the “Before You Move” subsidiary, they are in charge to manage a rather dynamic and unpredictable business which requires a high degree of entrepreneurial spirit and creative leadership.
To better align the compensation plan to the specific circumstances of this particular business, they bring forward a counter proposal which is would result in a partial ownership of equity after having achieved the set goals, which differs from the initial LEAP plan where the compensation would result in cash payments.
The main challenge for The Cross Country Group is to identify the most suitable compensation plan that both satisfies the employees and the owners while representing an effective incentive system to achieve the company’s strategic objectives.

Question 1: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the LEAP plan
The following points summarize the main

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