Our services are tailored to your requirements.
We are passionate about incentive plans. We would also love to be able to put our expertise to use for your individual needs.
In dealing with our clients, we are open, sincere, mutually respectful and personal, seeing ourselves as part of your team. We do what we have to do with both speed and precision and see nothing contradictory about these twin ambitions. We adopt an efficient and reliable approach to our work and get in touch with you at an early stage if anything is unclear or obstacles prevent us from pursuing the course we plan to take. Not only do we execute your requirements, we also look in the same direction as you and share your thinking. We are proactive in bringing ideas to the table and point out the associated opportunities and risks.
Incentive plans are something of a specialist area, and very few shareholders, board members, managers, or employees have a detailed understanding. The same goes for tax experts, lawyers, HR personnel, and financial specialists, for whom such plans generally represent a rather remote niche area, while even traditional remuneration consultants mostly fail to cover the topic in sufficient breadth or depth. For us, incentive plans are certainly not remote niche products. Nor are they an unknown quantity or simply a sideline. In fact between us, they have kept us busy for over 32 years now – day in, day out. We are experts in incentive plans and would love for you to benefit from the many years of experience we at SSIP have in this area.
We are used to adapting what we do to companies of various different kinds and sizes. These might be major international groups, Swiss middle market firms, SMEs, or even start-ups. They may be listed or privately owned and have a local or global presence. The examples below, taken from our many years of experience as consultants, illustrate some typical elements that can be adapted, combined, or enhanced depending on your requirements, objectives, and means:
Plan design and market trends: what varieties are there, how do they work, what is legally possible, what are the current market trends, and which solutions are best suited to your objectives? This may start, for example, with one of our tried-and-tested workshops – then you decide whether and to what extent you need further support from us.
Studies on the feasibility of participation models in other countries, taking into account tax, legal, and regulatory conditions and provisions. Creation of tax information sheets for employees and instruction sheets for HR/payroll departments. Help with declaring incentive plans on tax returns.
Illustration of the impact of incentive plans in accounting terms, for example as per IFRS 2 or the Swiss Code of Obligations.
Training for your HR and payroll people, based on practical workshops with case studies. Help for HR people with the implementation and roll-out of plans in Switzerland and abroad.
How do incentive plans for senior management fit in with remuneration votes at general meetings as per the Swiss Ordinance against Excessive Compensation in Listed Companies Limited by Shares (OaEC)? What happens, for example, if the actual payout eventually turns out be higher than the grant values previously approved?
Inter-company recharge models for incentive plan costs in Switzerland and internationally: what costs can be charged at what time and to what extent, and are these deductible under corporation tax in the countries concerned?
We develop informative presentations and memoranda illustrating the different varieties, the impact, and how things work: for your internal discussions, for board meetings, for talks with investors, etc.
Reproduction of what incentive plans look like on Swiss salary certificates, creation or review of proper attachments to salary certificates for Swiss participants in your plans.
We provide you with Excel models with a view to simulating the costs of the plan for the company and the potential payouts/allocations to employees according to various scenarios and over several years.
Creation of plan rules or amendments to agreements: as clear and precise as the law requires, but as short and to the point as possible.
We support communication to plan participants and other stakeholders by means of plan brochures, presentations, Q&A for your intranet, information events, etc.
Reproduction of what incentive plans look like in the remuneration report as per OaEC and SIX Swiss Exchange requirements: what must be disclosed and where, in what way, at what time, and using what values?
Valuation of unlisted employee equity for the purpose of Swiss income taxation, including advice regarding tax optimisation options and tax rulings.
We are also happy to help you with many other issues relating to remuneration reports and the OaEC, particularly checking or drafting remuneration reports as per the OaEC and SIX requirements, as well as compliance with the limits for permissible remuneration as per the OaEC and any future revision of the Swiss Code of Obligations (e.g. severance payments, buy-out awards, compensation for non-competition clauses).