Salary surveys can support your pay strategy to ensure that employees are fairly and competitively compensated. But what exactly is a salary survey? How can you choose the right one? This blog will provide a comprehensive overview to help inform your decisions when choosing the best salary survey for your organization.

What Is a Salary Survey?

A salary survey summarizes the statistical results for benchmark jobs based on a questionnaire collected from a broad number of employers to support in making informed compensation decisions. These surveys provide salary benchmarks for compensation levels, helping organizations ensure that their pay structures are market competitive and internally equitable. Organizations use salary surveys to benchmark compensation in order to attract and retain top talent while ensuring internal equity and compliance with legal standards.

Why Are Salary Surveys Important?

Salary surveys are useful for organizations of all sizes, locations, and industries. Salary surveys are a critical tool to accomplish the following:

  • Implement informed compensation decisions
  • Resolve compensation issues
  • Analyze pay trends
  • Establish job worth hierarchies
  • Develop an annual salary plan
  • Set your salary increase budget and salary structure movement
  • Identify competitive pay practices
  • Ensure legal compliance
  • Monitor internal equity
  • Defend current pay practices
  • Gain market intelligence

What Can Be Accomplished Using Quality Salary Surveys?

The right salary surveys can help an organization to accomplish its short- and long-term objectives. Consider these factors that make salary surveys so important:

  1. Market Competitiveness: In a competitive job market, offering salaries that are aligned with industry standards is vital. Salary surveys provide the data needed to determine competitive pay levels, helping to attract and retain qualified employees.
  2. Internal Equity: Salary surveys help maintain fairness within an organization by ensuring that employees in similar roles are compensated equitably. This can reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction.
  3. Budget Planning: Accurate salary data aids in budgeting when determining the true cost of an employee. This allows organizations to allocate resources more effectively.
  4. Compliance: Purchasing salary surveys from reputable sources ensures that you are pricing competitively, while also maintaining compliance according to the Safe Harbor Guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
  5. Strategic Planning: Salary surveys provide accurate salary data necessary for long-term planning and alignment with business goals.

How Do You Obtain Salary Survey Data?

Acquiring high quality and reliable salary survey data is critical to establishing a market-competitive compensation plan. Here are some common sources of salary survey data:

  1. Government Agencies: Public sector salary data are often available through government databases, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the United States. Although at no cost, government salary surveys are often conducted infrequently, which can result in outdated information that may not accurately reflect current market conditions.
  2. Online Salary Survey Databases: ERI’s Assessor Platform offers an extensive salary survey database. Our database consists of benefits and compensation surveys vetted by our data scientists to ensure maximum accuracy. You can run unlimited salary reports with data for 39,800+ jobs, 1,100+ industries, and 10,400+ global locations.
  3. In-House Surveys: Some organizations conduct their own salary surveys, especially if they operate in a niche industry or region. While they may be useful, in-house surveys often rely solely on the organization’s internal data, which may not provide the comprehensive view necessary to accurately evaluate market rates or industry standards. It is also important that these surveys are compliant with the FTC Survey Safe Harbor Guidelines.
  4. Industry and Job Function Salary Surveys: Acquiring industry- or job-specific salary surveys from a reputable source is an excellent way to obtain valuable compensation data for your organization. ERI’s Salary Surveys offer an in-depth analysis of compensation trends, featuring 20 industry-focused and 8 job function surveys, as well as a benefits benchmarking survey. With a broad selection of surveys, ERI can meet the unique needs of your organization.

Choosing the Right Salary Survey

Selecting the right salary survey involves several considerations to ensure that the data are relevant, accurate, and useful for your specific needs. Here are some key factors that you should consider when choosing a salary survey:

  1. Relevance to Your Industry and Region: Choose surveys that include market data on your specific industry and geographical location. Compensation levels can vary significantly between industries and regions, so it is crucial to select a survey that aligns with your organizational context.
  2. Job Matching: Verify that the survey includes job matches for your organization’s specific jobs. Accurate job matching is crucial for obtaining relevant data.
  3. Sample Size and Quality: Consider the sample size and quality of the survey. A larger sample size generally provides more reliable data. Additionally, the survey should include data from similar organizations in terms of size or scope, such as revenue, budget, assets, or number of employees. The higher the management job, the more likely size will be used in the market pricing process.
  4. Current Data: Compensation trends can change rapidly. Choose surveys that are updated regularly to ensure that you have the most current compensation survey data available.
  5. Survey Methodology: Understand the methodology used to collect and analyze the data. Reliable surveys use rigorous data collection and validation methods to ensure accuracy.
  6. Cost: Consider your budget when selecting a salary survey. While some surveys are available for free, they may not be reliable and accurate. Although others may come at a significant cost, they tend to be more dependable. Weigh the benefits of the data against the expense to make your decision.
  7. Reputable Source: Research the reputation of the salary survey provider. Established and reputable vendors are more likely to produce reliable and accurate salary data.
  8. Additional Features: Some surveys offer additional features, such as customizable reports, data visualization tools, and access to compensation consultants. These features can add value and enhance your compensation planning process.

 

Choosing the Right Salary Survey

Integrating Salary Survey Data into Compensation Planning

Once you have selected the right salary survey, the next step is integrating the data into your compensation planning process. These are some best practices to consider:

  1. Data Analysis: Analyze the survey data to identify trends and benchmarks. Look for patterns in pay levels, increases, and other compensation components.
  2. Job Matching: Job matching procedures should be implemented each time that a salary survey is purchased. Ensure accurate job matching by comparing your organization’s job descriptions with those in the survey. Adjust data as needed to account for differences in responsibilities and qualifications.
  3. Benchmarking: Use the survey data to benchmark your current base salaries against the market. Identify any gaps or discrepancies and develop a plan to address them.
  4. Salary Structures: Use the survey data to design or adjust your salary structures. Establish salary ranges, pay grades, and progression paths based on market benchmarks.
  5. Communication: Communicate the findings and any resulting changes to your stakeholders, including senior management, HR teams, and employees. Transparency is critical to gaining buy-in and maintaining trust.
  6. Continuous Monitoring: Compensation planning is an ongoing process. Continuously monitor the market and update your data and pay structures as needed to stay competitive.

How Does ERI Use Salary Survey Data?

ERI’s salary survey database uses a high volume of data to ensure that it is as statistically reliable as possible. Here are the salary data points collected and used by our data scientists to create our compensation database:

  • General and Industry-Specific Surveys: ERI utilizes industry salary survey data to help benchmark pay by industry. Our Assessor Platform combines information from both general and industry-specific surveys and allows you to specify the industry for any job title.
  • Geographic-Specific Market Data: ERI’s unique survey database allows customers to match their benchmark jobs based on the desired competitive market location, whether it is national, regional, state, metro, or city. Geographic differentials in ERI’s Geographic Assessor complement job-based market data in the Salary Assessor for managing geographic-specific compensation plans.
  • Executive Rewards: Learn about the most common executive rewards that are not traditionally part of a standard compensation package. Keep up with trends to attract and retain top executive talent while keeping total compensation in line with other companies.
  • Global Pay Data: If your organization operates on a global scale, you can find competitive compensation rates around the world for a particular job title using our international survey database.
  • Shift Differential Data: ERI’s Assessor Platform makes it easy to see how a particular shift can affect pay and helps you quickly analyze shift differentials to accurately benchmark compensation.

Try a demo of ERI’s Assessor Platform to see how you can utilize our salary survey data and compensation software in your salary planning process.