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Is Your Team Prepared?

By Business Consulting, Family Businesses, Newsletters, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy, Succession Planning
Planning Ahead

Is Your Team Prepared?

As you plan for next year, consider what your people need to carry those plans forward.

If your most reliable employee were out for six weeks, what would stop? The answer says a lot about how ready your team is for next year.

I once worked with a technology director who knew an organization’s systems inside and out. He was a founding employee and built many of those systems himself. Two junior employees worked alongside him, but he still held much of the knowledge.

As part of business continuity planning, the organization identified that gap. The director documented key processes, trained his colleagues, and gave them opportunities to handle situations independently. About two years later, he left to start his own business. The team was ready. Critical functions continued, and one of the remaining employees moved into a management role.

“It was a disappointment, but it wasn’t a panic.”

That preparation protected the organization. It also gave employees the experience they needed to take the next step in their careers. As you plan for 2027, how prepared is your team for what comes next?

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Leaders discussing succession planning and preparation for a leadership transition.

Six Steps For Succession Planning

By Business Consulting, Family Businesses, Newsletters, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy, Succession Planning
Planning Ahead

Six Steps For Succession Planning

Succession planning and leadership changes impact all organizations, but a successful transition involves more than choosing the next leader. An owner’s exit impacts leadership, staff, customers, family, finances, and the company’s future. Neglecting these factors can lead to systemic challenges, even with a good successor. Planning should start early to allow leaders to improve the organization, prepare successors, and make informed decisions about the future.

Here are six questions worth answering well before the transition begins.
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A manager having a one-on-one conversation with an employee, illustrating the kind of pay-related question managers face after a salary range is posted.

How to Prepare Managers for Pay Transparency Conversations

By Blog, Business Consulting, Human Resources, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy

How to Prepare Managers for Pay Transparency Conversations

By Janet L. Duncan, Human Resources Director, Warren Whitney

If you’re asking “what should managers know before pay transparency questions start” or “how do I train managers to talk about salary ranges,” here’s the short answer: give managers five specific pieces of information before any range goes public; how it was set, where each employee currently falls in it, what to say if someone feels underpaid, how employees move through the range, and exactly when to bring in HR. Without that, managers either freeze or improvise, and improvised answers are what damage trust.

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A simple bar chart showing a current employee at $58,000 positioned near the bottom of a posted salary range of $55,000 to $75,000, illustrating salary compression.

Salary Compression: What It Is and How Pay Transparency Reveals It

By Blog, Business Consulting, Human Resources, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy

Salary Compression: What It Is and How Pay Transparency Reveals It

By Janet L. Duncan, Human Resources Director, Warren Whitney

If you’re interested in “what is salary compression” or “why does pay transparency cause pay compression,” here’s the direct answer: salary compression happens when a new hire’s pay is close to, equal to, or higher than a current employee’s pay in the same or a similar role and pay transparency laws like Virginia’s HB 636 tend to expose it, because the range is now visible to everyone, not just HR.

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Timeline graphic showing HB 636 enacted April 22, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026, with key compliance dates for Virginia employers.

Virginia Pay Transparency Law (HB 636): What Employers Need to Know Before They Post a Job

By Blog, Business Consulting, Human Resources, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy

Virginia Pay Transparency Law (HB 636): What Employers Need to Know Before They Post a Job

By Janet L. Duncan, Human Resources Director, Warren Whitney

If you’re interested in “do I have to post a salary range in Virginia” or “what does HB 636 require,” here’s the direct answer: yes. As of July 1, 2026, Virginia employers must include a good-faith wage or salary range in every public and internal posting for a job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity. The law also bars employers from asking candidates about their salary history. There is no employer-size threshold; the law applies regardless of how many people you employ.

That’s the short version. The rest of this post covers what the law actually requires, what happens if you don’t comply, and, because a compliant posting is only the first step, what to think about before that range goes live.

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Leader helping a team navigate uncertainty and workplace disagreement

The Challenges of Leadership in Unsettled Times

By Business Consulting, Family Businesses, Human Resources, Newsletters, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy
Top of Mind

The Challenges of Leadership in Unsettled Times

These days, it feels like the world’s problems walk into work with our staff. Economic anxiety, social tension, and political polarization show up in conversations, social media posts, and in the way people interact or avoid each other.

As leaders, the task is hard: provide stability without pretending everything is fine, and create unity when people genuinely disagree. In unsettled times, the real work of leadership is to lead with clarity, empathy, care, and vision as well as to help teams find common ground even when that proves difficult.

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Business leader reviewing financial reports and management dashboards to guide strategic decision-making.

Are Your Financial Reports Helping You Manage the Business? | Warren Whitney

By Blog, Finance & Accounting, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy

Are Your Financial Reports Helping You Manage the Business?

By Scott R. Warren, Co-Founder, Owner & Director, Warren Whitney

Financial Reports Should Help You Make Decisions

Many organizations produce accurate financial statements every month but still struggle to answer basic business questions. Can we afford to hire? Is cash getting tight? Are margins slipping? Are we on track to meet our goals?

The problem usually isn’t the accounting. It’s that the reports were built to record history instead of support decisions.

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HR consultant discussing Virginia pay transparency law and salary range requirements for employers.

Pay Transparency Is Not Just About the Range

By Business Consulting, Family Businesses, Human Resources, Newsletters, Nonprofit, Privately Held, Strategy
New Law

Pay transparency is now in effect in Virginia.

Virginia’s new pay transparency law is about more than adding salary ranges to job postings. Employers should review their compensation strategy, internal pay equity, manager training, and hiring practices before posting a single job. Otherwise, public salary ranges can expose inconsistencies that affect recruiting, employee trust, and retention.

Under HB 636, Virginia employers must include a good-faith wage or salary range in public and internal postings for jobs, promotions, transfers, and other employment opportunities. The law also limits the use of salary history in hiring and pay decisions.

Many employers are starting with the posting. What range do we need to list? How wide should it be? Where should it go? Those questions matter, but they are not the only ones you should be asking.

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August 2018 Newsletter: Essential HR Practices for your Business

By Family Businesses, Human Resources, Privately Held

Protecting your most Important Investment: Essential HR Practices for your Business

As a small business owner, you are keenly aware that even if you worked 24/7 there still would not be enough time to get everything done. Being an effective manager requires knowing the critical elements to lead your team. We, at Warren Whitney, strive to inform you of the essentials to run your business. To help get you started with your HR program, Beth Williams, Director of Human Resources at Warren Whitney, has provided guidelines for a sensible and practical HR program. Included in these guidelines are three basic requirements:

  • Creation and maintenance of three specific employee files
  • Publication of an employee guidebook with specific policies
  • Posting of required state and federal notices

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Strategic Planning

By Privately Held, Strategy

A family-owned business-to-consumer (B2C) company, was going through a transition in leadership. The company was not operating with the guidance of a strategic plan, and the incoming president thought this would be an opportune time to develop a new strategic plan. A planning process also was an ideal way to begin to change the culture of the organization to make decision making more inclusive and collaborative at the management team level. The client engaged Warren Whitney’s Katherine Whitney and Scott Warren to work as a team through this process.

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