Consulting

Let Vega Mala Consulting help you improve your transformational, culture-shifting work through human resources support that is inclusive, equitable, and innovative.

Compensation Equity

Compensation is tricky, especially for under-resourced nonprofits. Torn between a flat salary scale and out-of-reach market rates? Worried that inequitable compensation practices may be showing up in your team? The Compensation Scale Equity Process and Calculator™ is a customized process accompanied with a custom-built management decision tool that organizations can use for a number of compensation-related activities. The process supports organizations to: (1) design a pay scale that embodies organizational principles and culture; (2) analyze their current salaries for pay equity; and ultimately (3) transition along a continuum from a market-based salary policy to an anti-racist reparations model that works to reverse-engineer racist pay policies and center those who live at the intersections of multiple marginalized communities—legally.

That’s a lot to do and ask for, and we want to be honest and up-front about our intentions.

  • The process is customized to each organization, and we’re building it out as we continue to work with organizations.

  • Our Conditions for Readiness document can help you assess whether this process is right for your organization.

  • Interested in learning how to implement our approach yourself? Check out our seminar series, “Put Your Money Where Your Values Are: Equitable Compensation in Practice”

 HR Support on Retainer

The majority of nonprofit organizations have annual budgets that are too small to prioritize HR staff. You may be struggling to stretch your limited capacity to meet your mission-related needs, while equally ensuring that staff wellbeing is centered. We can provide you with custom HR consultation on an as-needed basis that is aligned with your values of justice and equity.

We provide strategic guidance and training support customized to organizational lifecycle challenges: from strengthening values-based, mission-driven people practices; to legal compliance; to nourishing a productive and efficient workplace and culture that fosters teaming and acts of leadership.

Ready to get started? Let us know how we can help!

PLEASE NOTE: As of January 2021, we have put an indefinite pause on the following services, due to limited capacity. We do not currently have a timeline for when we will offer them again.

Policies and Compliance

Audits and Compliance Assessment: While you work on making the world a better place, you may have overlooked some best practices or compliance areas. We’ll conduct a compliance assessment (aka internal audit) to help you identify red-flags and take care of issues before they cause your organization problems. Do you routinely hire consultants? Are most of your employees exempt? Do you know when you have to pay overtime? Are your interns performing programmatic work? Are your office staff complaining about sore shoulders, tingling fingers, or headaches? Are you wanting to fire someone? If you answered yes to any of these, you could probably benefit from a review.

Personnel Policies and Employee Handbooks: Has it been a while since you’ve looked at your personnel policies? Do you look at your policies and feel like they don’t reflect your organizational values? Staying up-to-date with changes to local, state, and federal labor laws can be time consuming, especially if you are operating in multiple states. We’ll work with your management staff to confirm required and recommended policies are reflected in your handbook, complete a multi-state compliance check depending on where your staff is based, and identify which policies may be out of alignment with a values-driven, informative, and people-centered approach.

Staff Support: Do you need support hiring and supporting new staff? Perhaps you’d like strategic advice on growing and training your staff in a sustainable way, or your managers need support with supervising their employees or handling performance issues? Getting the right people on board and keeping them on board takes time and intention, and assessing performance and fostering a learning culture can be an opportunity to thinking holistically and creatively about setting up your team for their best work. From job descriptions to salary ranges to setting up a performance assessment and learning system, growing organizations can benefit from an additional HR strategist to support their growth. (P.S. If you feel like your team could benefit from a deeper dive into leadership development in particular, ask us about bringing the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process to your group.)

Organizational Assessments

We use organizational assessments like RoadMap Consulting’s My Healthy Organization and Our Healthy Alliance to help you assess strengths, build trust and alignment, and identify challenges you can address to improve your work. We also conduct environmental scans through research and qualitative interviews to help inform your organization’s next steps as you seek to become more effective and strategic.