Driving Comp Cycle Budget Efficiency and Managing Global Comp Strategy
Summary
Ironhack develops a sustainable global compensation strategy with Assemble
Ironhack is a multi-national edtech company with employees in eight locations around the globe. When it needed to 2x its workforce, Ironhack faced significant challenges in creating a sustainable global compensation strategy. Ironhack used Assemble to develop, implement, and manage their location-based compensation strategy to acquire and retain talented employees.
“In the past, we were consistently exceeding our budget and not really aware of how much we were giving in raises in the aggregate until we closed the cycle. Now we’re able to plan and have a clear understanding of how we’re trending against our budget, and Assemble gives us visibility we didn’t have before.”
Karina DuQuesne
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Chief People Officer & General Counsel
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background
Rapid growth plan brings budgeting and hiring concerns to the forefront
Painpoints
- Rapid growth requiring double the workforce
- Budget to support growth
- Retain existing employee base
Ironhack is a multi-national edtech company that teaches students around the globe skills like web development, UX/UI design, data analytics, and cybersecurity. It needed to double its workforce to keep up with rapid growth, but also had to ensure its budget could support the growth while hiring talented employees.
“We needed to be able to hire at the speed we wanted to, and each region was important for that,” said Karina DuQuesne, Chief People Officer & General Counsel at Ironhack. “We needed to be competitive in the market and we needed to retain our existing employee base while ensuring we stayed within a certain amount of capital allotted to our growth.”
Challenge
Global workforce leads to compensation strategy challenges
Painpoints
- Support complex comp program
- Run end of year comp cycle across international locations
- Advanced access control for managers
Managing compensation for dozens of employees with varying experience levels in locations around the world, many with different currencies, was already an incredibly complicated process. “We were really dependent on recruiters telling us what the market was for compensation,” said DuQuesne. “When it came time for end-of-year review, we had no idea where we should benchmark ourselves for year-to-year increases across departments or across regions. It wasn’t efficient, and it opened us up for potential retention risks and also liability.”
Executing compensation cycles fell onto the shoulders of just a few people at Ironhack. Before Assemble, it took up to eight weeks to manually gather and review information, manage spreadsheets, and distribute decisions across the workforce.
Ironhack knew the current processes weren’t sustainable, especially when its workforce would soon double.
Ironhack needed to create a compensation philosophy to automate the way it made decisions across its recruiting, retention, and promotion processes. Though it looked at several options, Ironhack selected Assemble as their compensation planning partner.
“Assemble really checked all the boxes for us on being able to have a global solution for all our regions,” explained DuQuesne. “It’s also currency adjusted, allowing us to use Assemble in either local or a single currency, which is extremely necessary since some of our managers have employees in different geographies.”
Ironhack used Assemble to map each role and job category within the company, creating career ladders for each position and defining every role. Once they had their mapping complete, they used compensation data to set bands for each role across all geographies and calibrated the data.
“We built our compensation philosophy, which was extremely 
helpful, and we still reference it regularly,” said DuQuesne. “The implementation process took only a month or two, and we were ready to launch in time for year-end review.”
Ironhack needed to create a compensation philosophy to automate the way it made decisions across its recruiting, retention, and promotion processes. Though it looked at several options, Ironhack selected Assemble as their compensation planning partner.
“Assemble really checked all the boxes for us on being able to have a global solution for all our regions,” explained DuQuesne. “It’s also currency adjusted, allowing us to use Assemble in either local or a single currency, which is extremely necessary since some of our managers have employees in different geographies.”
Ironhack used Assemble to map each role and job category within the company, creating career ladders for each position and defining every role. Once they had their mapping complete, they used compensation data to set bands for each role across all geographies and calibrated the data.
“We built our compensation philosophy, which was extremely 
helpful, and we still reference it regularly,” said DuQuesne. “The implementation process took only a month or two, and we were ready to launch in time for year-end review.”
Results
Assemble helps Ironhack streamline compensation cycle and simplify hiring decisions
15%
Below budget with managers  trained in compensation
6
Weeks time saved by using Assemble Comp Cycles
Ironhack hoped to implement Assemble prior to its next compensation cycle, which was happening in just a few months. With Assemble’s help, Ironhack launched the platform with time to spare, first turning on relevant compensation band visibility to 100% of their managers. Once managers had been trained in compensation, Ironhack completed its first compensation cycle with Assemble at 15% below budget, leveraging Assemble’s advanced budgeting guidelines.
Ironhack has also leveraged Assemble to assist in their hiring process as they continue expanding into different markets. “Something we didn’t do before Assemble was hire people within bands,” said DuQuesne. “We set compensation based on what the market was telling us in the moment, but oftentimes we ended up with compensation packages that fell outside of the bands we should have been hiring into.” Now, Ironhack can make strategic decisions based on data, knowing it is compensating each employee the correct amount based on their experience and geography.
Ironhack hoped to implement Assemble prior to its next compensation cycle, which was happening in just a few months. With Assemble’s help, Ironhack launched the platform with time to spare, first turning on relevant compensation band visibility to 100% of their managers. Once managers had been trained in compensation, Ironhack completed its first compensation cycle with Assemble at 15% below budget, leveraging Assemble’s advanced budgeting guidelines.
Ironhack has also leveraged Assemble to assist in their hiring process as they continue expanding into different markets. “Something we didn’t do before Assemble was hire people within bands,” said DuQuesne. “We set compensation based on what the market was telling us in the moment, but oftentimes we ended up with compensation packages that fell outside of the bands we should have been hiring into.” Now, Ironhack can make strategic decisions based on data, knowing it is compensating each employee the correct amount based on their experience and geography.
“Assemble has helped us stay competitive in the talent acquisition market by helping us know how we should be compensating our employees. It helps us with retention and has really empowered managers to be part of the compensation process with their team.”
Karina DuQuesne
-
Chief People Officer & General Counsel
-
About Ironhack
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Ironhack is a global EdTech startup that has been disrupting education since 2013, with 14 campuses and a growing community across the world. Trusted by hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, SMEs, startups, and agencies, we help companies hire and develop corporate talent and elevate the diversity of their workforces. We don't just help you fill your vacancies at scale, we also help you identify which skills and applicant profiles you need to drive your mission forward.

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“In the past, we were consistently exceeding our budget and not really aware of how much we were giving in raises in the aggregate until we closed the cycle. Now we’re able to plan and have a clear understanding of how we’re trending against our budget, and Assemble gives us visibility we didn’t have before.”
Karina DuQuesne
-
Chief People Officer & General Counsel
About Ironhack
‍
Ironhack is a global EdTech startup that has been disrupting education since 2013, with 14 campuses and a growing community across the world. Trusted by hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, SMEs, startups, and agencies, we help companies hire and develop corporate talent and elevate the diversity of their workforces. We don't just help you fill your vacancies at scale, we also help you identify which skills and applicant profiles you need to drive your mission forward.

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Highlights
Painpoints
Key Results
The Challenge
Requirements
The solution
15%
Below budget with managers  trained in compensation
6
Weeks time saved by using Assemble Comp Cycles
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Partnership Impact
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Discover why thousands of others have chosen Assemble.
Assemble is a compensation management platform for forward-thinking organizations. We help companies make systematic compensation decisions to attract, motivate, and retain employees while eliminating inequitable pay.
