Conduct Your Own Salary Survey

The following outlines the major steps taken when designing, planning and executing your own salary survey.

• Step one: Select who you will survey.
  • Consider competitors in the job market (those organizations that compete for talent with you).
  • Consider competitors with respect to product or service.
  • Solicit participation via phone, mail or e-mail.
    
• Step two: Decide which jobs will be benchmark jobs.
  • Tips for choosing benchmark jobs:
    • Survey the individual jobs contained in job families, not just single jobs.
    • Survey jobs other organizations are likely to have.
    • Survey jobs with a lot of incumbents.
    • Survey troublesome jobs where there may be a lot of complaining employees, where you may have recruiting difficulties, or where it is essential to the organization that the salary for a given job is market-driven.
    • Try to get a large sample of participants, as it will increase the validity of the data collected.

• Step three: Design the survey instrument.
  • Consider asking participants for the following information:
    • Company scope data:
      • Name and contact information of person completing the survey.
      • Primary industry of organization.
      • Number of employees (exempt, nonexempt, full-time, part-time, temporary, by location, etc.) at the organization.
      • Total annual revenue (sales).
      • Total assets.
      • Union presence.
        
  • Benchmark job data:
  • The FLSA status of the job (exempt or nonexempt).
  • The number of incumbents in each benchmark job.
  • The strength of the job match (according to a predetermined scale).
  • The average base salary (indicate annual, monthly, etc.) of those holding the job.
  • The actual base salary of the lowest paid employee holding the job.
  • The upper salary limit (maximum) of the salary grade.
  • The lower salary limit (minimum) of the salary grade.
  • Eligibility for bonus and the average annual bonus paid.
  • Eligibility for commissions and the average annual commissions paid.
  • Eligibility for stock options or other long-term incentives.

Caution. To avoid antitrust concerns, ask only what wages, salaries and benefits an organization is currently paying.

• Pay program procedures:
• Frequency and average size of step increases or merit increases.
• Frequency and size of across-the-board increases.
• Use of cost-of-living allowances or geographic differentials.

Other compensation:

• Check for the use of the following programs:
  • Pensions.
  • Profit-sharing.
  • Incentive bonus.
  • Stock purchase.
  • Savings plans.
  • Vesting provisions.
  • Shift differentials.
  • Overtime or compensatory time to exempt personnel.
• Employee benefits programs:
  • Life insurance.
  • Health insurance.
  • Dental insurance.
  • Vacation.
  • Long and short term disability insurance.
  • Accident insurance.
  • Amount of employer-paid benefits as a percentage of payroll.
• Time off policies:
  • Vacation.
  • Sick time.
  • Leave time.
    
• Step four: Distribute the survey.
  • Include a cover letter.
  • Ensure the participant that the supplied information will be kept confidential.
  • Promise the participant a copy of the analyzed results.
  • Include a specific due date.
  • Include contact information, should the participant have any questions.
  • Include instructions for completing the survey and define specific terms, like "total compensation."
    
• Step five: Follow up.
  • If necessary, follow up on any outstanding surveys that aren't returned by the due date.
    
• Step six: Analyze results.
  • Calculate medians, averages, weighted averages, 25th percentile, 75th percentile, etc.
  • Summarize findings in easy-to-understand charts.
  • Use codes so that individual company data cannot be identified.
  • Communicate all significant findings.
    
• Step seven: Distribute results.
  • Send a copy of the final survey report to participants.
  • Make sure information is presented in summary form and no information can be attributed to a single participant.
  • Thank respondents for their participation.