Yesterday, we got some important guidance on job descriptions as they relate to your compensation program, courtesy of John Rubino of Rubino Consulting Services. Today, Rubino’s thoughts on salary surveys: the good, the bad, and the potentially illegal.
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Why Are Salary Surveys Used?
- Price jobs and determine market positions.
- Diagnose compensation problems.
- Analyze pay trends.
- Establish job-worth hierarchies.
Securing Survey Data
- Factors: Sample size, participant base, statistical analyses, survey methodology, job-matching procedures
- Acquiring data:
- Published surveys: Thousands available from big survey houses
- Custom surveys: Contract with a third party to custom-design and administer a survey
- Web-based data
- Complimentary sources—proceed with caution!
- Trade and industry associations
- Internet sources
- Periodicals and publications
- Professional recruiters
Conduct Your Own Survey
If you decide to conduct your own survey, Rubino says, it can range from a formal, comprehensive survey you design and conduct to a quick, informal phone or fax survey
for limited data.
Either way, the process allows you to gather data that meet your specific needs. And don’t be offended if other companies refuse to provide data to you.
General Aspects of Salary Surveys
- Individual company data should not be identified—aggregate data are the norm
- Includes an executive summary
- Match your organization’s benchmark jobs
- One benchmark job is not matched to two different job titles
Could pay grades be the best course of action for your comp plan? Get started on Thursday, May 28, 2015, with a new interactive webinar, Assembling a Pay Grade System: The Step-by-Step Process for Getting It Right. Learn More
What’s a Benchmark Job?
A benchmark job is a job that is commonly found in many organizations and used to
make pay comparisons. Pay data for these jobs are readily available in published surveys.
These jobs tend to be easily defined, representative of all levels, and important to the internal hierarchy at an organization. At least 50 percent of jobs in an organization should be identified as benchmark jobs.
Watch Out for Antitrust Issues!
If you call colleagues in other companies to see what they are paying, you are likely guilty of a Sherman Antitrust Act violation. The Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890, prohibits price-fixing.
Here are some safe harbor guidelines to keep in mind if you’re conducting your own research:
- The survey must be conducted by a third party. If you are part of a local comp or HR group, you must have a third party do your survey.
- Data must be at least 3 months old, so no one’s using real-time data.
- Each disseminated statistic must have five companies reporting data.
- You should not be able to identify an individual or a company.
- No individual company’s information can represent more than 25 percent of each disseminated statistic.
Of course, research is the cornerstone of any successful compensation program—you need to stay educated in order to ensure you stay competitive. There are many comp strategies out there, and a pay grade system may be just what your organization needs. How to get there? Fortunately, there’s timely help in the form of BLR’s new webinar—Assembling a Pay Grade System: The Step-by-Step Process for Getting It Right. In just 90 minutes, on Thursday, May 28, you’ll learn everything you need to know about pay grade systems and how to implement them effectively.
Register today for this interactive webinar.
Get your salary structure in order—the RIGHT way. Join us Thursday, May 28, 2015 for a new interactive webinar, Assembling a Pay Grade System: The Step-by-Step Process for Getting It Right. Earn 1.5 hours in HRCI Recertification Credit. Register Now
By participating in this interactive webinar, you’ll learn:
- What pay grades are and the correct way to determine them, for either creating or revising a structure
- How a salary structure is built, with examples of different methods of putting them together
- When to pay above market—and when it makes sense to pay below
- Key ways that pay grades influence your performance/merit pay programs
- How pay grades interact with variable pay
- When and how to conduct an internal equity review
- How to address pay discrepancies and inequities without creating legal liability
- What to do about pay discrepancies between men and women in similar positions
- Laws to consider when putting a compensation policy in place
- Complying with Executive Order 11246, and how to handle increased EEOC anti-pay-bias enforcement
- And much more!
Register now for this event risk-free.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Eastern)
12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Central)
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Mountain)
10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Approved for Recertification Credit
This program has been approved for 1.5 credit hours toward recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI).
Join us on Thursday, May 28—you’ll get the in-depth Assembling a Pay Grade System: The Step-by-Step Process for Getting It Right webinar AND you’ll get all of your particular questions answered by our experts.
Train Your Entire Staff
As with all BLR/HRhero webinars:
- Train all the staff you can fit around a conference phone.
- Get your (and their) specific phoned-in or emailed questions answered in Q&A sessions that follow the presentation.
What about the survey data that employees use to bolster their arguments for raises? How do you let them know why that data might not be applicable without alienating them?