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WMS Perspective
 Salary Surveys
and Comparable Worth
These two subjects are
frequently in the forefront of discussions by Human Resource professionals,
political activists, and unions. Brought into the discussions are
politicians, legislators, judges, and lawyers.
Poorly designed and
improperly implemented surveys can legitimately be charged with verifying
that which exists, thus maintaining the status quo of women. One of WMS’
first perspectives, “The Pitfalls of Market Pricing,” deals with this
subject. These poorly designed surveys may also be viewed as illegal under
each of several antitrust laws. However, there is no doubt that salary
surveys do have their place, and do provide invaluable data to human
resource professionals charged with managing the compensation plans of their
organizations. The key, however, is that the survey must be properly
designed. When this is done, comparable worth, by design, is appropriately
addressed.
Key Design Criteria
To eliminate biases and protect
oneself against antitrust violations, several basic survey design criteria have
emerged:
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Title comparisons are misleading. By using job content
(measured job size) as the criterion for job matching, comparability
among survey jobs is assured.
-
Allow for cultural differences among companies.
Corporate philosophy and objectives significantly influenced the
relative importance of management jobs. This is why, in many regards,
internal equity can be more important than any external comparison.
-
Examine job families (functions) as well as data covering
all jobs. This will highlight “scarce supply” jobs which need special
treatment beyond that which is internally equitable for the entire
company.
-
A survey is only as good as the timeliness of the data
and the proven ability of the surveyor to project salary trends. The
person or firm conducting the survey must be responsive and employ
reliable technology.
-
It’s not enough to view base salaries. Incentives,
bonuses, benefits and perquisites are essential ingredients of
compensation.
-
Company size and degree of operating autonomy must be
taken into full consideration when measuring job size. It is
insufficient to merely “adjust” or report data by company size; the
individual jobs and their relationships within and outside the company
(points 1 and 2) must be accurately assessed.
-
A local survey should represent an aggregate of all jobs
among all industries.
-
Use a disinterested third party for conducting salary
surveys.
Conducting the Survey
The courts have made it perfectly clear that antitrust issues may
be at stake. Political activists have correctly identified the weaknesses and
misapplication of some salary surveys. For these and other reasons, the most
sophisticated and legally astute companies rely on third parties to conduct
their salary surveys.
In Personnel Administrator magazine, an article “Salary
Surveys—an antitrust perspective,” by Garry D. Fisher stated:
“Use disinterested, third
party surveys as much as possible. Such surveys, if properly conducted using
blind aggregated results, would be much harder to attack on charges of attempted
price fixing.”
“Eliminate company code
exchanges for surveys reporting ‘blind’ results. Such exchanges merely deny the
protection gained from the use of codes to disguise each participant’s data.”
A WMS and Company, Inc. survey
goes a step beyond merely eliminating company code exchange. By presenting data
by measured job size, not only is data “blind” but there are no codes to
exchange, even if the participants want to engage in such activity.
Additionally, our surveys meet each of the key design criteria. Beyond that WMS
surveys are designed to:
-
provide input regarding
internal equity and external competitiveness for base and total
compensation for the entire organization as well as for major functions,
-
provide input regarding internal equity and
external competitiveness for base and total compensation for the entire
organization as well as for major functions,
-
provide titling guidelines,
-
provide data relating to incentive payout
levels by job size,
-
present data on weighted job title
comparisons, and
-
provide an overview of benefits within the
survey group.
In general, comparable worth becomes a non-issue
within your company if first you provide equal opportunity, then back this
up with a salary policy which does not undo the company's good intentions by
using a poorly designed salary survey.
The steps are straightforward:
-
Measure all jobs with a bias-free system in
order to determine internal equity.
-
Have a survey conducted which meets the
criteria set forth in this WMS Perspective.
-
Build a motivational salary policy which
positions the company in an appropriate position relative to the survey.
Upon following
these steps, your organization will have solid survey data upon which to develop
compensation policy—and be in full compliance with the principles of comparable
worth. WMS would like to assist you. We are confident that you and your
employees will be pleased with the results.
For More Information Contact:
WMS and Company, Inc.
20128 Valley Forge Circle, King of Prussia, PA 19406
Tel: PA: 610-783-7733 CO: 720-890-1528
Fax: PA: 610-783-6591 CO: 720-890-1529
Internet:
info@wms-wms.com
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