We have over 20 years experience in market research conducting market analysis projects in areas as varied as determining the competitive market area for an industrial gases plant, evaluating the market price for a special low sulfur coal having unique operating properties not readily available in the market, and modeling / forecasting the dynamic change in recruitment, turnover, retirement, and staffing to evaluate the impact on company labor costs and market competitiveness for different staffing strategies. Our approach to compensation analysis is to use the tools and our extensive experience to assess the compensation challenge from non-traditional HR perspectives.

CASE STUDY: Salary Structure Design – IT Department

A national recognized financial services firm was spinning-off a new standalone organization. One of the critical requirements for the new organization was to design from scratch, a salary structure that would retain their competitive advantage within the Information Technology division. Innovation and high performance within the IT Department were critical success factors for the new organization, and the salary structure design needed to explicitly reflect the external market environment. The client needed to understand the typical number of IT grade levels in the external market, the typical range of pay for positions within the market, and the current standing of its soon to be acquired employees. The client also had a short timeframe for salary structure design and a need to easily communicate its analysis to senior management.

We used the IT surveys purchased by the client and developed consistent career ladders for all positions in the survey. We then developed a customized interactive application that enabled users to select any career ladder and graphically display the external market distribution for each position in the career ladder. To incorporate Company information, we developed career ladder histograms and displayed that information so that distribution of Company employees was aligned with the external market distributions.

This innovative display approach enabled the client to quickly and visually assess the number of typical market levels, the range of pay within those markets, and the possible slotting tactics for its future employees. The client used the application both to design the new salary structures but also to communicate its rationale to senior management.