Triggers and hurdles and cliffs, oh my! To be clear, I’m talking about pay plan mechanics and in particular about the kind of cliff that plays an unfortunate starring role in many pay programs. Specifically, the incentive plan with the…
Compensation
Reimagining Pay for Today’s Workforce
Comprised of four or even five generations, today’s workforce is a melting pot made up of employees of all ages and demographics. It’s more diverse than ever, and as a result, can pose challenges for HR professionals and employers when…
Stop Making Comp Offers Like a Car Buying Negotiation
In today’s incredibly tight labor market, it’s harder than ever to attract top notch talent. The majority of candidates are interviewing with (and receiving offers) from multiple companies. Counter-offers are more common, time to hire is increasing, and offer acceptance…
Comp Guide for a Small Company: Why You Need a Salary Survey
Note: This is the second in a 4-part series on compensation practices for small companies. In this series Margaret O’Hanlon shows how a small company typically deals with compensation, discussing each of a few key practices and what problems these…
What Would Happen If Everyone’s Pay Was Known?
What would happen if everyone knew how much everyone else was making? Crazy, you say? It might work for major league sports, but not for us. Wait a minute, says Josh Ingalls, who was Sr. HR Business Intelligence Consultant at…
Appeals Court Says Prior Salary Doesn’t Justify Pay Differences
Just in time for Equal Pay Day, a federal appeals court today ruled today that an employee’s salary history alone is insufficient to justify pay differences between male and female employees. “Reliance on past wages simply perpetuates the past pervasive…
Appreciation and the Company Outlook Drive Satisfaction and Retention More Than Pay
Maybe your paycheck isn’t what gets you out of bed in the morning, but nobody would come into work if the money stopped flowing. Pay is the most basic way to motivate employees, but how much does pay matter relative…
How to Prepare Managers to Talk About Pay
Of all the topics organizations need to talk about, you’d think they’d be most effective about communicating compensation. After all, although you hope that employees love their jobs, they work to earn money — to pay their mortgage, put gas…
What We Can Do to Improve Performance Measurement and Rewards
When it comes to evolving performance management and pay for performance, it has definitely been a long haul. For the past few years, performance has been on the collective brain of HR and compensation professionals. At every conference over the…
3 Steps You Can Take to Close the Gender Pay and Opportunity Gaps
Gender pay data can be examined in a number of different ways, but no matter how you slice it, the pay gap still exists. The most recent research by compensation data and software company PayScale, where I work, shows that…
Your Comp Plan Is a Reflection of Your Culture
These days, it seems like more and more companies are thinking about their corporate culture. A good culture is viewed as a solid strategy for driving job satisfaction and – ultimately – attracting and retaining the best and brightest employees…
Wages Jump As Jobs Grew Modestly In December
Ending the year much as it began, employers hired a modest 156,000 new workers in December, bringing the total for 2016 to 2.16 million new jobs. In 2015, employers added 2.74 million. While this morning’s jobs estimate from the Labor…
5 Ways Compensation Will Change in 2017
As the economy continued to rebound in 2016, there was intense competition in many talent markets across a number of jobs and industries. All indicators show the financial landscape is poised to continue growing in 2017, so employers are now…
Budgeting Comp For a Blended Workforce
One of the key missions of a CHRO (or those who want to become CHROs) is to create a compensation plan. This has become increasingly complicated and dependent on other departments (like procurement) as the workforce has drifted to a…
How to Decide Comp In A Continuous Feedback Workplace
Now that your company has started giving more frequent feedback, you may be wondering how this new system will impact compensation and promotion decisions. You may be inclined to directly use the information collected, as you did with your annual…
You’ll Be Better Off Talking to Them About Pay
It’s time to bring compensation into the modern era. Companies are successful when they make their organization a place where the best people want to work. As a result, HR leaders need to develop compensation programs that embrace this idea….
What You Can Do About Shrinking Take Home Pay
Big companies. Small companies. Private. Public. For-profit. Nonprofit. Manufacturers. Tech shops. Banks. Hospitals. Retailers. You name it. They all want to do right by their employees. To be a place people want to work. To support work-life balance. To pay…
How to Link Pay to Performance When You’ve Eliminated Reviews
Performance management is definitely undergoing a midlife crisis; it’s time for it to reinvent itself. For the past few HR and compensation conferences I’ve attended, the question has been heavy in the air: what are you doing about your performance process? Most…
Selling Your Comp Plan the FAB Way
How are great salespeople able to seamlessly turn every one of your concerns into a demonstration of the prowess of their product? Are they really just that convincing or is there some type of method to their success? The best…
Some Simple Steps “Traditional” Employers Can Take to Modernize Their Pay Practices
At PayScale, we strive to help all kinds of organizations embrace modern compensation practices to engage their workforce and drive results. Even employers that think of themselves as more “traditional” than “modern” can take a few steps in this direction,…