Established salary structures aren’t mandatory. There is no law that requires them, but they serve many useful purposes. Having salary ranges in place can ensure that salary decisions, from new hires to promotions, are made with objective and consistent rules and parameters. They provide at least a first line of defense against salary discrimination, intentional or otherwise, by ensuring that employees performing the same job are granted the same salary opportunity. And, formal salary ranges provide you with a tool for proactively managing and budgeting your salary dollars.
Salary structures help ensure that pay levels for groups of jobs are competitive externally and equitable internally. A well-designed salary structure allows management to reward performance and skills development and control overall base salary cost by providing a cap on the range paid.
A salary structure enables employers to pay employees in a given position, consistently, for the work they do. Salary ranges also offer flexibility enabling a company to pay higher in the range for an employee based on a greater level of education, experience or performance. In the same way, it can potentially save on labor costs when hiring employees with limited backgrounds.
Having well documented and communicated salary ranges can minimize employees’ pay equity concerns and grievances.
A well-designed salary structure will help organizations:
- Attract and retain suitable, qualified, and experienced employees
- Build high morale with internal equity
- Create more satisfied employees and thus reduce turnover
- Minimize favoritism and bias
- Provide a structure for career progression
- Serve as a sound basis for collective bargaining and employee relations management
If the salary structure gets out of sync with the overall labor market, a company may find itself paying employees too much and needlessly increasing operating costs, or paying employees
too little and having difficulty attracting and retaining talent.
A study of the current labor market will provide new information to determine whether the organization’s pay structure, policies and practices, job classifications and job titles are appropriate or needing adjustment.
WageWatch offers accurate, up-to-date HR metrics, benefit survey data, market compensation data and salary reports that will allow you to stay current with the times. This information is highly beneficial in creating the best salary and benefits packages that meet or rival the industry standards. The PeerMark™ Wage Survey is the only Web-based custom survey tool that allows individual survey participants to select their competitive set for comparison purposes. Our experienced compensation consultants can assist with your organization’s compensation needs. We can help you ensure internal equity and compliance with regulations as well as help you structure your compensation programs to support your company’s business strategy and objectives. For more information on our services, including consulting, salary survey data, benefit survey data and market compensation reports, please call WageWatch at 888-330-9243 or contact us online.