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Long-Term Incentive Advisory Services

Plans built for growth and effectiveness.

Long-Term Incentive Strategies

With a focus on performance over years rather than months, our long-term incentive plans position organizations for sustained growth and long-term value creation. We partner with clients to design progressive, tailored solutions that reward enduring performance and align leadership behavior with strategic priorities.

Long-term incentive plans are among the most powerful—yet complex—elements of a total compensation strategy. Organizations often struggle to balance multiple plan structures, evolving cultural expectations, and long-term business objectives. Without thoughtful design, LTIPs can become difficult to administer, communicate, and sustain—limiting their effectiveness.

Zayla brings deep, differentiated expertise to long-term incentive design. Our team has helped shape industry standards through our roles as instructors and content developers with WorldatWork, as well as technical contributors to leading publications including The Power of Restricted Stock, Stock Option Alternatives, and Equity at Work. This foundation enables us to approach LTIPs from both a technical and strategic lens. We have partnered with hundreds of public, private, and not-for-profit organizations to navigate LTIP complexity—streamlining plan design, strengthening alignment with long-term strategy, and enhancing talent outcomes. The result is a more effective, sustainable approach that attracts, retains, and motivates critical talent while driving measurable business impact.

Long-term Incentive Consulting Benefits

Zayla’s long-term incentive advisory services help you create a company culture focused on long-term performance and key employee and executive retention. By understanding the goals that are key to your organization’s success, we develop plans that are both structured and flexible enough to reward true long-term performance through volatile economic changes.

Each plan has a “baked in” retention feature, encouraging staff to remain with your organization, accumulate rewards, and drive progress over a period of years rather than months. Our long-term incentive designs have been widely recognized to deliver the maximum bang for the buck and drive superior company performance.

Our Approach to Long-term Incentive Design

Zayla’s approach is rooted in deep listening and creating tailored solutions that help your organization achieve its goals. We don’t just look at what your peers or competitors are doing. We ask targeted questions about your company’s objectives, culture, compensation philosophy, and projected timeline for achieving important milestones.

Using decades’ worth of experience in designing long-term incentive programs, we develop refined plans that maximize the value of your dollar. This ensures that the right investment vehicles are matched to your company’s team and goals, and your LTIP is more meaningful and motivating to your employees.

Examples of Long-Term Incentives

Stock Options
Stock appreciation rights
Restricted stock awards
Restricted stock units
Perfomance shares
Founders stock
IPO stock awards
Management incentive units

Carries interests
Profit units interests
Waterfall structures
Royalty rights
Cashed-based long-term incentives
Phantom stock
Dividend equivalent rights
Book value units
Retention awards
Key employee equit plans
Key employee retention plans

Long-Term Incentive FAQ

How does a long-term incentive plan design help my organization?

Long-term incentives are a great way to encourage understanding of your company’s long-term vision, mission, goals, and objectives. When designed strategically, with measurable, achievable objectives, long-term incentive plans hire, inspire, retire excellence in performance, and encourage employees to think beyond the short term. Long-term incentives can also retain employees over an expanded period. Finally, long-term incentives can help a private company or not-for-profit level the playing field with a public company peer that utilizes equity as a key component or total compensation.

Who is eligible to receive long-term incentives?

Industry practices typically drive long-term incentive eligibility, but company culture, vision, goals, and objectives influence eligibility. Typically, executives who have managerial profit responsibility are eligible for LTI awards. This after will equate to a base salary level of $150,000.

How often should I evaluate (or re-evaluate) my long-term incentive plans?

We typically recommend reviewing your long-term incentive plans as frequently as you mark awards. For most companies, these awards are made annually or every other year.

What are the key factors in developing a long-term incentive plan?

Long-term incentive plans are one of the most critical links between where a company is and where it wants to go. The following items are important influencers to a successful LTI plan:

The company’s vision and mission are well articulated.
The key drivers of the company’s long-term financial health are understood.
The use of cash, stock, or strategic transaction will fund the long-term incentive payout.
The base salary, annual incentives, and other elements of compensation will fit with a long-term incentive plan to create a comprehensive total rewards strategy.
The company has a long-term plan to grow and, or ultimately have a strategic event such as IPO or sell.

What data sources do you use to develop long-term incentive plans?

Identifying reliable long-term incentive data by industry is one of the most challenging aspects of long-term incentive design. We rely on data in a variety of forms, including company proxy statements, annual reports/10Ks, Form 4 filings, published survey sources tailored to your industry, company investor presentations, and, most important, our significant experience in designing LTI plans over the past two decades for public, private, and nonprofit organizations.

Why utilize an external consultant vs. internal HR practitioner for long-term incentive planning?

Companies often need an outside perspective to determine leading edge marketplace practices. Additionally, boards frequently request an independent perspective to provide third-party objective advice when setting performance metrics and payout targets. And many companies lack the necessary staff with incentive plan design experience to develop leading edge programs.