Your Compass Benefits & Career: Financial Planning for Employees and Executives

Do you work at Compass Real Estate? Get the resources you need and expert insights from financial professionals who specialize in helping Compass employees make the most of their compensation package and benefits.

Whether you’re a new Compass employee or you’ve moved up the ranks into a management or executive leadership role over a multi-year career, it’s important to make smart money moves with your income and employee benefits. For example:

✅ Do you know the right moves to make to get the greatest value from the Compass benefits available to you?

✅If you’re thinking about leaving Compass for another job or planning to retire from the company in a few years, are you taking the right steps today to ensure you will receive all of the compensation and benefits that you’ve earned?

Get the Most Value from Your Compass Benefits and Compensation Package

Throughout the year, Compass provides its employees and executives with updates about their benefits ranging from health insurance and health savings plans to retirement plans like a 401(k). While the company offers many useful resources and access to knowledgeable staff who can assist with questions, you’ll also find financial professionals not affiliated with Compass who specialize in helping Compass employees make the most of their income and benefits.

Whether you work in the Compass headquarters in New York City, another office location around the country, or remotely from home, you may have questions about your compensation package and benefits better suited for a financial professional who can offer unbiased advice and guidance.

For example, sensitive topics like discussing the steps you should take before quitting your job at Compass to work elsewhere, protecting yourself in advance of a corporate layoff, or deciding when you should plan to retire are all conversations that may be more comfortable with a trusted financial advisor.

💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with Compass employees to help them make smart decisions to get the most value from their compensation and benefits, reduce their money stress, and prepare for a comfortable retirement.

🙋‍♀️ Do you have questions not yet answered? Use the form below to submit questions anonymously and watch this article for updates with answers to your questions. You can also reach out to the financial advisors below to set up an introductory call or contact them with your questions by email.

💸 Smart Money Insights for Compass Employees & Executives

This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:

1. Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Compass Employees & Executives
2. Get Answers to Your Questions About Your Compass Benefits and Career
3. Browse Related Articles

Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Compass Employees & Executives

Answers to Compass Real Estate Employee Questions with Jackie Lewis, CFP®, MBA

Jackie Lewis is a financial advisor based in San Diego, California who works with Compass employees on financial planning considerations related to their benefits and compensation. Jackie helps clients understand and evaluate their Compass benefits and compensation within the context of their broader financial picture so they can make informed decisions about their financial future.

Q: As a financial advisor with experience helping Compass employees save for their retirement, how do you help them make the most of their employee benefits?

Jackie: Compass has some great benefits and we help you understand and evaluate the benefits available to you. This includes helping you with equity compensation, retirement accounts, health insurance and family benefits within their overall corporate benefits package.

Q: When you first speak with a Compass employee, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals?

Jackie: Compass provides robust equity compensation packages so we help you to strategize around ways to manage equity compensation and evaluate tax considerations when liquidating stock based on your unique situation and needs. This leads to questions such as: What are your goals in life? How long do you hope to stay with Compass? What would you like to do for your family? How well do you feel you understand your equity compensation? Do you have an idea of what taxes you may owe with your total compensation package?

Q: Beyond Compass employee benefits for retirement savings, are there other types of benefits offered by the company that you find valuable to discuss with your clients?

Jackie: Compass provides a significant portion of your compensation through their equity compensation so we guide you through how to leverage this during an open window with the goal of managing tax exposure and we help you develop a multi-year plan that you can reference over time.

Q: For Compass employees who have managed their finances on their own to this point, what would you suggest they consider to help them decide if they should begin working with a financial advisor at this stage in their lives?

Jackie: An advisor can help with short-term decision-making such as equity compensation decisions, tax advantaged guidance, etc. and also with bigger-picture thinking (i.e. creating a framework so you can see the direction all your hard work is taking you, and make sure your money behaviors are aligning with your life goals). A client is often already doing many of the right things and the value of the planning process is to put things in a broader framework to allow for proactive/intentional decisions to be made as well as being a sounding board and accountability coach for the client.

We encourage DIY investors to consider the potential cost of NOT getting a second opinion. Investment management is one thing, but retirement planning often involves significant nuance to it that many people may overlook such as:

• How will my investments be taxed? Can I minimize my lifetime taxation? Am I taking too much (or not enough) risk in the markets?
• What is my plan to turn my assets into income? What are the tax implications of doing that?
• Am I going to run out of money? How should I deal with Inflation? What about long-term care?
• Are my beneficiary designations up to date? Do I understand what’s going to happen to my assets when I pass?
• Do I need life insurance? Do I have enough or too much? Should I keep these old policies?

There are a number of different areas that a Certified Financial Planner® professional may be able to provide value to a recent retiree, even if they choose to continue to manage their own investments.

Q: What are some of the unique financial planning challenges you commonly see among your clients who are Compass employees and how do you help them overcome these obstacles?

Jackie: A good, high-paying job can feel a bit like golden handcuffs sometimes and it can be hard to imagine walking away. But, if you want to prepare for an exit or a shift to a different industry, we can help model potential pathways for the transition. In a role with equity compensation, a challenge can be to define how much should you rely on that compensation in the plan. It’s variable and can be hard to quantify but can be significant. So, having a firm structure based on a client’s comfort with exposure and how it’s treated in the plan is important.

Q: What questions do you recommend Compass employees ask financial advisors they’re considering hiring to help them decide if they’re a good fit?

Jackie: Are you a fiduciary? Do you have to act in my best interest? Will you be providing comprehensive financial planning or just investment management? What will I pay in fees? Are there any hidden fees in the products you’re recommending?

Get to Know Jackie Lewis, Financial Advisor for Compass Employees:

View Jackie’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit her website to learn more.

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