Evergreen Solutions LLC

Dr. Linda Recio and Dr. Jeffrey Ling founded Evergreen Solutions, LLC in 2005. What they established in Tallahassee, Florida is a management consulting firm whose work is directed at public sector and mission-driven organizations, and specifically at the human resources and management questions that shape how those organizations serve the people who depend on them. Dr. Recio took the role of first President. She held it until 2020, when she became President Emeritus. The experience she brought to the firm included leading the education practice for another consulting firm, overseeing reviews of Florida school districts for the Florida Department of Education, and directing planning and policy development for Leon County Schools. Dr. Ling reached the presidency by way of various roles in private industry, consulting, and higher education, one of which was Executive Vice President of Evergreen Solutions. His work over the last 30 years has involved more than 2,500 organizations and has focused on improving outcomes in human resource management, operations, and change management. He is a Certified Compensation Professional, and he holds an Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation, and Technology. Two decades of operation have followed. In that time Evergreen Solutions LLC has worked with public sector clients in 47 states and has completed more than 1,800 engagements. Cities and counties are represented in that client base, as are school districts, institutions of higher education, and state agencies. The core of the practice is compensation and classification. Studies in this area are market-aligned and equity-driven, and Evergreen Solutions builds them to support recruitment, retention, and fiscal accountability. A study moves through position analysis, salary benchmarking, review under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and stakeholder engagement. The intended result is a pay structure that is fair and that holds up over time. Performance management represents a second line of work. Here Evergreen Solutions designs systems that tie employee performance to organizational goals. Transparency, continuous feedback, and professional development are what these systems are built to promote, and they are kept straightforward enough to implement and maintain. Questions about future staffing fall to the firm's succession and workforce planning services. Clients use them to anticipate staffing needs that have not yet arrived, to identify leadership pipelines, and to develop succession strategies. Demographic analysis and strategic forecasting are the methods, and workforce continuity and readiness for organizational change are the goals Evergreen Solutions LLC works toward. Structure itself is the subject of the firm's organizational design studies. These assess and redesign organizational structures so that efficiency improves, roles and responsibilities become clearer, and strategic alignment is supported, with particular attention to strengthening collaboration and promoting agility. Departmental operations reviews sit close to this work. They look at internal workflows, surface inefficiencies, process bottlenecks, and improvement opportunities, and turn what they find into actionable recommendations. Rounding out the management consulting services are efficiency and staffing studies. Data-driven analysis is applied to staffing levels, workload distribution, and resource utilization, and optimization opportunities are identified from it. Clients use the findings to reduce costs, increase productivity, and align staffing with operational demand. All of this consulting work is organized around four public sector markets. K-12 education, local government, state government, and higher education each receive a distinct practice area within the firm. Software development runs alongside the engagements. Evergreen Solutions LLC builds and maintains a suite of web applications for human resources management, delivered on a platform the firm calls egsHR. One of them, the Job Assessment Tool, or JAT, is a survey-based instrument that captures the key responsibilities and requirements of a role from the perspective of the employees who hold it, and its insights feed both job descriptions and compensation and classification recommendations. Another, Job Force Manager, or JFM, is for organizations managing their compensation systems, giving them a way to view, adjust, and track pay plans, pay grade assignments, and market data. The third, Job Performance Tracker, or JPT, evaluates employee performance on a competency basis through self-assessments and supervisor evaluations. Employees use it to gauge their strengths, development areas, and goals. Supervisors use it to assess progress, provide feedback, and identify developmental needs. Clients seeking an automated performance management tool are offered Job Performance Tracker by Evergreen Solutions. The engagement record shows how far the client base extends geographically and institutionally. A compensation study was conducted for the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court in Missouri. A salary survey comparison study and equity analysis were completed for the City of Colville, Washington. The City of Helotes, Texas received wage and compensation consulting services, and the Town of Vail, Colorado received compensation consulting services. At the Port of Bellingham in Washington, Evergreen Solutions LLC carried out a compensation study for non-represented employees. For the City of Berkeley, California, the firm performed classification and compensation studies with desk audits for select departments. Twenty-five staff are employed by the firm today. Public administration, human resources, education, economics, and finance are the backgrounds its consultants come from, and several of them hold professional certifications, among them Certified Compensation Professional, SHRM-SCP, IPMA-SCP, and Project Management Professional. State agencies, county and municipal government, school districts, and university systems are places where team members have worked before, and that history shapes how Evergreen Solutions LLC approaches the operational realities its clients describe. Four commitments are the ones the firm names as its own: continuous learning, partnering with clients, innovation, and support for individual career paths. Charitable giving extends beyond the business itself, with Evergreen Solutions LLC and its staff supporting multiple organizations that assist with the well-being of animals, children, cancer patients, and communities. More than twenty years of public sector work now sit behind the firm. Evergreen Solutions LLC continues to operate from its offices in Tallahassee, Florida, bringing customized, data-informed analysis to the organizational questions that face government agencies, school systems, and public institutions across the country. Its stated purpose is to partner with public sector clients to effect positive change, and to give those organizations practical, results-oriented strategies for operating more effectively and preparing for what comes next.