With today’s current competitive job market, it is now more important for workers to be paid what their skill set and experience are worth and for employers to meet that challenge.
In an article that appeared on the Benefit News Website, Richard Stolz interviewed Vice President of People at PayScale (https:/www.payscale.com), Stacey Klimek, how companies and HR managers can use big data and algorithms as tools to determine the best fit in terms of salary and compensation for both companies and workers.
When PayScale was just starting out, they had to compete for top talent as many other companies are finding themselves doing today. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook were located in the same area, so focusing not only on monetary compensation but also the intangible benefits such as having a job that is interesting, makes a difference and has a chance for advancement within an organization is also important.
With employees in 24 states, PayScale has conversations with workers twice a year regarding their compensation. Each of those markets has differences in salary ranges. However, the company does seek to eliminate the gender pay gap as much as possible. According to Klimek, the conversation isn’t strictly about numbers.
Workers are given advice on how they can improve on their own personal benchmarks and performances to work within their salary range. “For so long, employees were told you get a 3% raise, and that was it. There was no conversation. Today they might still get a 3% raise, but if they do, it’s for the right reasons, and they walk away understanding that,” Klimek says.
Those milestones come in the form of discussions with workers four times a year which is referred to objectives and key results or OKRs. By having such frank and frequent discussions between managers and workers, when a raise is being given, the worker knows what the raise is for. Setting up expectations so that salary and benefits transparency is something that should be done early when a new worker is first on-boarded and begins working for an organization.