How does my pay compare to the external labour market?

Ahead of Brexit, we have highlighted how employee engagement is critical to overcome recruitment and retention issues that this might exacerbate. As a result, you want this year’s pay review to be competitive, targeted and efficient. 

You need to know how your pay scales compare to the external labour market to drive down employee turnover by ticking the box of competitive pay in a buoyant labour market. Having insight into market trends and effectively collating internal and external reward data will help target spending and help you recruit and retain high quality staff in a fluid environment.

Using pay benchmarking

Conducting a pay review requires a range of skills including data analysis, data modelling and job evaluation. You will need to collate information (for example, salary surveys and national statistics) and establish a single, accurate market range for each job. Pay benchmarking (comparing your pay to the market) is an important factor in deciding what to pay your people. To effectively benchmark, you must make like-for-like comparisons with the external market. That means choosing the right comparator organisations and accurate job matches. Using a range of information, including multiple salary surveys and national statistics can also help you make more rounded decisions. Benchmarking pay presents a few challenges for HR professionals to overcome, including:

• Selecting the right sources of information from a credible provider who understands your market well;
• Submitting your employee data before you can receive market pay information (this can be time-consuming and needs specialist skills);
• Collating and summarising both your employee data and external market information into a single structure;
• Taking account of the nature of work (function or family groupings) and employee seniority (level) within the organisation;
• Taking appropriate account of the factors driving executive pay, such as turnover, sector, reporting structure, board membership and so on;
• Deciding how to act upon market pay findings (for example, creating market-led salary scales to structure pay decisions);
• Agreeing how to communicate decisions to executives, line managers and other staff through transparent employee engagement; and
• Making sure all benchmarked data remains confidential, and complies with data protection and anti-trust legislation.

How can Paydata help with my pay review?