A solid way to establish confidence that you're paying your team competitively
Pros
- Detailed view of the market rates for roles within the organization provides the ability to pay our employees at our chosen rate with confidence.
- Updated data to ensure that we are keeping pace--you're not stuck with outdated data that some annual salary surveys provide.
- The market available for analysis are robust, and we're not simply looking at a single city, region, or country. You can usually get as grand or as granular as you like in reviewing available data.
Cons
- There is a bit of a learning curve--if you're looking to get others involved who are not fluent in compensation data and analysis, it can be complicated and involved. It could benefit from additional tips and walkthroughs for newer users outside of the support that PayScale provides through your designated PS employee/account manager.
- Being a Canadian company, the data isn't always as robust as it is for American companies. Larger cities are almost always represented and while you can often get data for the smaller areas, the data is not sufficient enough to always provide the best confidence (e.g. 5.0 reports vs. lower rated ones).
- It does not work for every job, and you may find that you need to stretch definitions a bit as you may have roles that don't fix the exact mold that they are closest to in PayScale. This is especially true in insurance, where the role of underwriter or claims adjuster may differ significantly based on the organization's business.
Return on Investment
- Positive: Ability to better understand where our pay is relative to the market and ensure that we are paying competitively and attracting the best possible talent.
- Positive: We can have more informed compensation conversations with staff about their pay and why we pay the way we do. We can define our compensation philosophy and build a plan to move forward and ensure we keep staff informed.
- Neutral Impact: While PS MP can be robust for certain jobs, using it as a unified platform within the organization is not without its challenges as some jobs just don't quite fit the data provided and we need to make some concessions. While there are benefits to the data, the additional work and less confidence makes those benefits a bit of a wash in the end.
- Negative: There has been no negative impact of using PS MP overall to this point.
Other Software Used
Workplace by Facebook, BambooHR, Calamari, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe Photoshop