Use online survey software to create compensation surveys
Why are online compensation surveys important for business? If your business wants to become or remain competitive within their industry, the business needs to conduct regular compensation surveys.
Establishing a fair compensation level for employees is essential for any business. If your business underpays employees, you may find your employees seeking opportunities elsewhere for a higher paying position within another company, and potentially for competitor. On the contrary, if your business overpays employees with regard to salary and benefits, the payroll budget and profitability of your business may suffer greatly. For these reasons, to best determine fair compensation for your employees, many companies use an online survey software solution to design and administer regular compensation surveys to gauge the compensation levels of all jobs offered in the company.
An online compensation survey is a dynamic tool that can collect and analyze a broad range of data, including average salaries and benefits paid to employees in specific regions and industries, with respect to a specified profession. Compensation surveys are often referred to as salary surveys. However, there is a key difference between the two. While both compensation surveys and salary surveys collect data on salaries, a compensation survey goes a step further and takes benefits into account.
To determine the current rate for a job, a company can benchmark jobs against data from compensation surveys that are detailed and specific to their industry and region. A good compensation survey uses standard, proven methods of data collection and statistical analysis to determine how much a company should compensate for a specific job in a specific industry. If data uncovers a significant deviation from industry averages, your company can adjust compensation packages based on the results of the compensation survey.
While some businesses conduct their own in-house surveys, many utilize online survey software to design the compensation survey, administer and collect data, and perform analysis of the data internally. In preparing for the survey, human resources staff should compile information on each job description in which they want to receive data, including education and experience information. It is also important to include the average time in which each employee has been in their position, and the frequency and average amount of bonuses paid to each position. Obtaining a minimum, midpoint, and maximum salary range is considered standard practice when gathering data for a compensation survey. Compensation surveys can be rather broad, covering main industries and common jobs; however, they can also be custom compensation surveys, which are much more narrowed and specific in terms of, in a specific job, area, and region of the country.
