Compensation trends: Modern perspectives on pay

Comp Basic: Mean vs. Median

<h1 class="subhead">The Difference Between Mean and Median</h1> <p>Midpoint, market ratio, mean, median, merit bonus - I don’t know what it is with “m” words in compensation, but there are a lot of them and it can get confusing. Let’s try to simplify things by breaking down the difference between two commonly confused words: mean and median.</p>

How to Avoid Pay Compression

<h1 class="subhead">Pay Compression: Our Nightmare in the World of Compensation</h1> <p>Compression is the ugliest issue compensation professionals face. It tends to be a no-win, lose-lose situation, and the ways to deal with it are limited.</p>

Executive Bonus Planning: An Overview of Short-Term Incentives

<h1 class="subhead">Executive Bonus Planning: An Overview of Short-Term Incentives</h1> <p>By Bridget Quigg,<a href="https://www.payscale.com/pro" target="_self" rel="noopener"> PayScale.com</a><br /><br /> Executive pay planning can be an intimidating process, even for seasoned HR professionals. In the upcoming series of posts on the topic, we hope to enlighten you on the basics of executive pay, as well as get into the details on topics like restricted stock grants and deferred compensation. We’ll start with this up-close look at short-term incentives, or a bonus plan.</p>

How to Get Ahead of Low Performance with a Effective Performance Management Process

<h1 class="subhead">Underwhelming: Sure Signs of Low Performance</h1> <p>How do you know if an employee isn’t reaching their goals, pulling their weight or just plain getting the job done? Identifying low performance can be tricky. And, training managers to do it is often challenging since every manager has their own personality and way of relating to their team. How can you simplify the task of identifying low performance and training others to do it well?</p>

Become a certified compensation professional (CCP)

<p>If you work in HR and want to find a way to advance your career, why not earn a Certified Compensation Professional certificate? This certification, offered by World at Work, requires you to pass nine tests and, as their website states, is a “mark of expertise and excellence in all areas of compensation.” Recently we took a moment to interview a PayScaler about what it takes to earn a CCP. </p>

Advantages and Disadvantages of Broadbanding

<h1 class="subhead">The Advantages and Disadvantages of Broadbanding</h1> <p>Broadbanding is the term applied to having extremely wide salary bands, much more encompassing than with traditional salary structures. Whereas a typical salary band has a 40 percent difference in pay between its minimum and maximum, broadbanding would typically have a 100 percent difference. Most of the time, creating enormously large bands is done as a measure to support a restructuring. It combines and consolidates the number of levels or job grades. This article will discuss the advantages of broadbanding in an overall compensation strategy, as well as the disadvantages.</p>

Salary by Location

<h1 class="subhead">Why Geographic Differentials Don’t Work</h1> <p>For years compensation professionals have used geographic differentials to make decisions about what to pay jobs in locations where they may not have salary data. The theory stands that if you don’t have data for one location, you can use data from another location and adjust it based on the cost of labor in the two cities. While this may be a better option than making decisions without any data on salary by location – it’s not much better.</p>

Employee Pay for Multiple Jobs

<h1 class="subhead">Pay for Employees Performing More than One Job Q&amp;A</h1> <p>If you have employees who want to work additional jobs for extra pay, you need to make sure you are paying them properly. Nonexempt employees may be owed overtime, while exempt employees generally can be paid the extra compensation without affecting their exempt status.</p>

Creating a Merit Matrix

<h1 class="subhead">How to Create a Merit Matrix</h1> <p>When is it time for your organization to allot its merit budget, how do you best support the decision makers? Consider creating a merit matrix. A merit matrix is a great tool that can easily summarize and boil down paragraphs of policy into a simple, quick-to-view and quick-to-use visual to produce better decisions.</p>

Pay Incentive Programs

<h1 class="subhead">Incentive Pay and Cautions for Non-Exempt Employees</h1> <p>Above and beyond base pay is the option of incentive pay. The critical point to make about any plan for a pay incentive program is to watch your messaging. Your communication should focus on the notion that incentive pay is for results above and beyond normal expectations. You want to avoid any one thinking their incentive pay is an entitlement. Look what that thinking has done in the financial industry.</p>

Writing an Employee Termination Letter

<h1 class="subhead">Writing an Employee Termination Letter: How Much to Include? Q&amp;A</h1> <p><em>Find out the pros and cons of putting your termination reasons in a written employee termination letter.</em><br /><br /> <strong>Q:</strong> We want to provide employees who are terminated with a brief employee termination letter explaining our reasoning and informing them about administrative issues like COBRA and returning office keys. How much detail should be included about the reason for termination?</p>

A Crash Course In Key Compensation Metrics