5 ms·

What is the training for the HR people that decide salaries/comp? I know there's glassdoor & co, but before that, HR people must have used some sort of methodol

by boppo1 5y ago

What is the training for the HR people that decide salaries/comp? I know there's glassdoor & co, but before that, HR people must have used some sort of methodology to figure out what the top & bottom range of a position is, no?

milkytron 5y ago
There are organizations that try to collect this data, I know my company currently uses one of them to determine what a competitive wage would be for hiring. I forget what they are called though, and their data does seem to be in favor of paying less (maybe outdated data, maybe trying to side with the employer, who is their customer, that they don't need to increase pay, idk).
- sokoloff 5y ago
  There are several salary study firms (some old school like Radford, some new like levels) and the answer you can buy from them depends on the question you ask. If you want an answer to “what’s the median base salary for SWEs in the US?”, they can sell you the answer. If you want to know “what’s the P75 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P90 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P75 SWE total comp in the cohort of these 12 top employers of SWEs?” those are all also available, but numerically quite different from each other. You could call any of them a “market reference point” with a straight face.
  - boppo1 5y ago
    How much does that cost?
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I don’t know how it scales for different size companies, because firms like Radford do some significant inquiry and processing on your data as well (as inputs to the system) and I wasn’t involved in buying that data. Levels has a data feed service they sell that’s an initial dump of N months of history and then a daily dump of additional ones. That was modestly priced (I think that was low 5 figures per year, but in any case it was quite inexpensive relative to running a software operation). As an individual or small employer, I think levels is an amazingly valuable service (for free). When you get larger, buying these products makes more sense. (We’re remote-first and even still spend more on soda and coffee in a year than on salary data; I’m sure the salary data does more to attract, motivate, and retain than the soft drinks do.)
cosmie 5y ago
They collude, more or less. Although indirectly via third parties (such as Radford[1]) so it stays legally kosher. "Neutral" third parties conduct salary/compensation surveys. Many companies (HR departments) participate in these surveys and disclose their information to the third party. The third party then packages it up into an anonymized 'market compensation analysis' that companies can subscribe to/purchase. So companies can get a good read on how much is enough for their market, without ever directly revealing their hand to anyone except for the neutral middleman that's washing all the data. A lot of HRIS (HR Information System) companies and payroll companies also package up and sell aggregate analytics on compensation figures. And the companies using those vendors are pretty complicit about their employee data being used in this manner, because at the end of the day they're the same ones buying the end result and peeking at the aggregate data to ensure they don't offer any more or less than they have to for a role. [1] https://radford.aon.com/ https://radford.aon.com/
- strikelaserclaw 5y ago
  the weird part is these surveys undershoot by 20-30%, so HR gets to come up to you and say "we'll based on our extensive research we think this is a good number"

by boppo1 5y ago

milkytron 5y ago

There are organizations that try to collect this data, I know my company currently uses one of them to determine what a competitive wage would be for hiring. I forget what they are called though, and their data does seem to be in favor of paying less (maybe outdated data, maybe trying to side with the employer, who is their customer, that they don't need to increase pay, idk).

sokoloff 5y ago
There are several salary study firms (some old school like Radford, some new like levels) and the answer you can buy from them depends on the question you ask. If you want an answer to “what’s the median base salary for SWEs in the US?”, they can sell you the answer. If you want to know “what’s the P75 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P90 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P75 SWE total comp in the cohort of these 12 top employers of SWEs?” those are all also available, but numerically quite different from each other. You could call any of them a “market reference point” with a straight face.
- boppo1 5y ago
  How much does that cost?
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I don’t know how it scales for different size companies, because firms like Radford do some significant inquiry and processing on your data as well (as inputs to the system) and I wasn’t involved in buying that data. Levels has a data feed service they sell that’s an initial dump of N months of history and then a daily dump of additional ones. That was modestly priced (I think that was low 5 figures per year, but in any case it was quite inexpensive relative to running a software operation). As an individual or small employer, I think levels is an amazingly valuable service (for free). When you get larger, buying these products makes more sense. (We’re remote-first and even still spend more on soda and coffee in a year than on salary data; I’m sure the salary data does more to attract, motivate, and retain than the soft drinks do.)

cosmie 5y ago

They collude, more or less. Although indirectly via third parties (such as Radford[1]) so it stays legally kosher. "Neutral" third parties conduct salary/compensation surveys. Many companies (HR departments) participate in these surveys and disclose their information to the third party. The third party then packages it up into an anonymized 'market compensation analysis' that companies can subscribe to/purchase. So companies can get a good read on how much is enough for their market, without ever directly revealing their hand to anyone except for the neutral middleman that's washing all the data. A lot of HRIS (HR Information System) companies and payroll companies also package up and sell aggregate analytics on compensation figures. And the companies using those vendors are pretty complicit about their employee data being used in this manner, because at the end of the day they're the same ones buying the end result and peeking at the aggregate data to ensure they don't offer any more or less than they have to for a role. [1] https://radford.aon.com/ https://radford.aon.com/

strikelaserclaw 5y ago
the weird part is these surveys undershoot by 20-30%, so HR gets to come up to you and say "we'll based on our extensive research we think this is a good number"