Burford Capital Case Study

Faster compensation reviews with more control and less lost sleep

About

Burford Capital is the leading global finance and asset management firm focused on law. Its businesses include litigation finance and risk management, asset recovery, and a wide range of legal finance and advisory activities. Burford is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUR) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE: BUR), and it works with companies and law firms around the world from its
principal offices in New York, London, Chicago, Washington, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Dubai.

The Challenge

Chermia S. Hoeffner joined Burford Capital in September 2021 as Vice President of Human Resources. We spoke to her about her choice to adopt Decusoft Compose for compensation planning and management.

What prompted the decision to invest in compensation software?

For years, the compensation process was run using one spreadsheet, and everything was manual. This was appropriate when Burford was smaller. Growth brought with it process issues.

When I arrived at Burford in September 2021, it became clear to me that an upgrade was in order . We had more than 150 people on four continents and needed to manage an expanded menu of different compensation arrangements. There was also the prospective challenge of complying with the expanded nature of NYSE reporting requirements.

What were you hoping to achieve?

We wanted a system that would enable users to go in and look something up or make a correction without worrying about disturbing everything else. The problem with spreadsheets is that someone could change one cell that could have knock-on effects on other cells.

With a comprehensive system, we could have history that told us who changed what and when. If an error were made, we could go back and rectify it fairly easily.

We were also extremely interested in having compensation history that was easily accessible to managers, our Management Committee and the Board’s Compensation Committee.

What capabilities did you want in a compensation system?

We needed something that could track all the forms of compensation we offer—base, bonus, restricted stock units, special bonuses, spot
bonuses, and various benefit-related matters—in multiple currencies. And it needed to generate annual total compensation statements for
employees with an ability to acknowledge the statements. We wanted the ability for employees who received new restricted stock unit awards
to review and acknowledge their awards and to receive their required disclosure documents.

We also wanted a system that allowed us to change things without having to start from scratch. Down the road, we may want to introduce a
new performance element, compensation element or even hire someone in who needs to be paid in a currency not currently on the Compose
system. I know from experience that any software implementation takes months off your life, so you want something that will last three to five
years at a minimum.

The Solution

How did you select Decusoft?

We were also planning to get a human resources information system, so we looked to see if any had a compensation module we could use.
But none could do what we needed in multiple currencies, so I started calling people in my network. A friend from business school, who had
worked with Decusoft, said we should talk to them. I called other people in private equity and heard that Decusoft was easy to use for the kind
of professionals we have—and that it would grow with us. I couldn’t find another product that met our requirements.

What was Decusoft like to work with during the implementation?

Our team is a stickler for responsiveness, and they were very good. Our system was more involved than they expected which made for a few rough patches during implementation, but if we called and said something wasn’t looking right, they would get right on it and make the fix. One time we rolled out something on Friday night, and on Saturday, before I went to my 7AM tennis game, there were 15 emails saying that
people in the UK had trouble logging into the platform. By Sunday morning, Decusoft had everything working. Most issues we had were
invisible to the planning managers and staff, which is something you aim for when you implement any new system.

The Results

You used Compose for your 2022 compensation cycle. How did it go?

The compensation planning period was faster. When we opened the system to planning managers, they were able to see only the employees in their group and comp history for those people. As soon as they entered the recommended salary and bonus, it could be seen by HR, the CFO and CEO in real time. And, we could have all the planning managers in the system working on the compensation recommendations for their teams at the same time. It eliminated the need for all the information to sit in an email.

Another benefit we liked was if someone were promoted or left the company, we could change the planning manager permissions immediately, only giving the necessary access.

If there is a discussion about compensation, it is managed in the system instead of in multiple emails. The system created a rule so that if a manager entered an increase of more than a certain percentage, a message would pop up to say that it surpasses guidelines. The manager was able to open a text box to enter an explanation. Planning managers could also enter questions or comments as well. And because HR is alerted, we can read the notes in real time and help manage the process.

We also appreciated that the Finance team can also monitor salary costs. It is especially important to our CFO to track our compensation
budget to our actual spending. We can now easily spot when an increase or bonus is out of scope or over budget. There are stronger checks and balances.

How did planning managers and employees adapt to the new system?

People like it very much. For the planning managers, using Compose was super intuitive because it looks like the spreadsheet they were used to.

The biggest difference for them is how much time they saved at the end of the compensation cycle. Now, information auto-populates, and the system is ready for the managers when they have performance reviews with their people.

Employees, meanwhile, can log in after their review to see everything for themselves and acknowledge their comp package for the coming
year. It takes three minutes.

What difference does it make to you and the HR team?

It saved the entire team a lot of time and eliminated the time spent worrying about what could go wrong if someone accidentally sent out the incorrect information.

Another benefit we liked was if someone were promoted or left the company, we could change the planning manager permissions immediately, only giving the necessary access.

If there is a discussion about compensation, it is managed in the system instead of in multiple emails. The system created a rule so that
if a manager entered an increase of more than a certain percentage, a message would pop up to say that it surpasses guidelines. The manager
was able to open a text box to enter an explanation. Planning managers could also enter questions or comments as well. And because HR is alerted, we can read the notes in real time and help manage the process.

We also appreciated that the Finance team can also monitor salary costs. It is important to our CFO to track our compensation budget to our actual spending. You cannot do that in a spreadsheet. We can now easily spot when an increase or bonus is out of scope or over budget. There are stronger checks and balances.