COMPENSATION SURVEYS - SHOULD YOU REALLY BOTHER?
Every year you get requests to participate in compensation and benefits surveys, but when you look at the documents, you think to yourself, “I don’t really have time for this.” Right? Well, before you decide, perhaps we should look at some of the reasons why you should or should not take the time (Olney’s annual survey will be mailed out this month!).
Advantages of Participation
We all know that to have a successful human resources program, you have to know what is going on in your competitive marketplace—even if you cannot pay equivalent to the largest and/or best paying organizations, or if you have limited dollars available for salary and benefit expenditures, you need information to be able to make informed decisions about how to spend the resources you have. That is the first and most important reason for participating—the need for specific information on jobs, job families, overall practices, and trends. It would be nice if we could just go out and buy that information, but it’s not that easy.
Another reason for participation is the need for quality data—your need and the needs of others in your market/industry. When you present recommendations based on survey data, the data better be good—your reputation rests on it! Quality has a few important components:
- Participating firms. The more firms that participate, the better the survey is. When you participate in a survey, you are not only getting data that you need, you are also improving the quality of the database so that others will also get what they need. You have to give in order to get! Ideally, participation in an ongoing industry survey provides the most reliable and comprehensive data source for all—it becomes an industry standard which everyone can rely on but which requires everyone’s support to be successful.
- Consistency. When essentially the same group of organizations participate in a survey year after year, trends are easy to spot—and report on. Sporadic participation alters the survey firm’s ability to accurately report on trends. That is why survey firms, like Olney, present same company analyses—these are not affected by organizations coming into or getting out of a particular survey.
- Jobs and Issues Included. Again, participation is the key here. There are government guidelines on what should be reported in compensation surveys, so the more firms that report on a given job or question, the more likely you will get relevant data back.
- Help in Interpreting and Applying the Data. As a survey participant, you can call and ask for help in applying this data to your situation.
- Networking. You can participate in meetings for survey participants, where discussions cover topics such as what information is included in the survey, how is it defined, trends/issues/concerns that are not covered in the survey reports. There is no substitute for networking with your colleagues if you want to be current on market and industry activity.
Disadvantages
The biggest disadvantage of participation is the time it takes to complete a survey. It does take time to do a thorough job; but if you are getting the advantages enumerated above, it is time well spent.
Another possibility is that you may not get information that you need. If this is the case, you should probably not participate, unless it is important to maintain an ongoing survey effort.
Finally, cost can be an issue, but planning for data acquisition can be accomplished in budget planning sessions with good results. Few organizations will deny the necessity of having good data upon which to base informed decisions. After all, most organizations spend 40% - 60% of expenses on compensation and benefits—that’s a lot of money to be spending without a comprehensive understanding of the market. The cost of most compensation surveys is small compared to this need—but sometimes it just needs to be communicated better.
What to Do?
- Choose your survey efforts carefully. In the “ideal world,” you can get everything you need from one (one each for compensation and benefits) survey. Look for a survey that has:
- High participation rates (of the organizations in which you are interested), historically, and, ideally, has professional/industry sponsorships;
- All or most of the jobs/issues you are interested in;
- Encourages participant involvement in the planning, reporting, and feedback of the survey;
- Is produced by a capable and reliable third party with a reputation for quality;
- Formulate and communicate your plan for data acquisition at budget planning time, including the quantity, quality of data, the uses of the data, and a cost analysis. Olney Associates will be glad to help you with this at no charge.
- Plan and commit time to do a thorough job of reporting your data—this is critical. Partial responses damage the quality of data almost as much as non-participation. Take the time to track down data that is not readily available—plan for this. Here at Olney Associates we know that some data does not get reported because it is too hard or time consuming to compile. This only diminishes the quality of the report you get back.
- Find ways to automate your data input. Talk to your IT department—there are many ways to make this task simpler. Olney Associates will help you with this at no charge.
- Plan to participate in group discussions on survey content. It is well worth your time, as the resulting report will better reflect your needs.
- Ask for help if you need it. We’ll try to do whatever we can to make it easy for you!