It’s very easy to get caught up in personalities and performance when benchmarking a role. Benchmarking is not about how well an individual performs, nor is it about what extras you think they do day to day. And it certainly isn’t about whether you like a person or not. So when you spend every day with your employees, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus purely on a role without letting personality, likability and performance come into play. This is why bringing in impartial, external experts can help ensure your benchmarking process is as accurate and objective as possible. Here are three key benefits of using an independent reward consultant:

1.     It’s about the role not the person

When I facilitate benchmarking sessions with clients, I often hear people say ‘well, John brings more to that role, so I think he should be matched a level higher…’ or ‘I don’t think Annie does that very well at all’. Remember that the individual’s performance doesn’t matter – this is measured in performance reviews and ratings. It’s about understanding the content and value of the role.

This is where an impartial perspective can really help. We don’t have interaction with your employees in the same way you do and won’t be swayed by the person doing the job.

2.     Independent salary survey advice

Making sure you use a reliable and robust data source is essential, there are so many choices of salary survey, how do you know what to choose? Some are free and appear to offer a cheap solution to the problem; some are recruitment surveys specialising in advertised salaries; then there are salary survey providers who offer detailed salary surveys but at a price. How do you know which is right for your business?

We are independent from the salary survey providers and we have extensive knowledge of the different providers in the market and the type of pay information they collect. We provide an impartial view to help clients agree the best approach, match your data and produce reports graphically illustrating your market position.

3.     Time and resource saving

Pay benchmarking is an art and not a science; it’s all down to interpretation. Time and resource pressures within a busy HR department might mean that the task of benchmarking roles is shared between multiple colleagues, so how do you ensure a consistent and fair approach?

In all our pay benchmarking projects there is a dedicated analyst so you can be certain of consistent and fair interpretation and matching into your chosen salary survey, resulting in a defensible pay range for each role.

Impartiality is key to making sure your pay benchmarking is objective and fair. It will help you understand your market position relative to similar comparator organisations and allow you to make informed pay decisions, strengthening your organisation’s position on pay. 

To find out more about how we can help, please get in touch: 020 3457 0894.

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