The safeguards in salary benchmarking

Here is a paraphrase of a LinkedIn question asked recently : “How do you make sure each role benchmarked for salary purposes has the same responsibility ? Is there legislation on this ?” This is a question a Compensation specialist often gets from managers. Here is what you can reply when you get that question…

What is your approach to aging ?

… I’m referring to aging salary survey data, of course 🙂 The big compensation providers are starting to return the results of their 2011 surveys, and now is the time to get started on the analysis of the data. So, a few months ago, you participated to the survey. The data you submitted was dated…

Emiratisation and Compensation & Benefits – part I

With the government’s recent push on emiratisation, and similar decisions in the other GCC countries, Compensation & Benefits professionals have a role to play in supporting the attraction, retention and growth of UAE Nationals in both the private and the government sectors. In Emiratisation : the way forward ?, Jane Williams from INSEAD explains in…

How to decide how many promotions to grant each year

In a post last week, I described the best order in which to apply salary increases. Basically you start from the most general ones, and progressively you apply those that are more individual in nature. Promotional increases are among the second category, as only a minority of employees receive them each year. I got a…

New hires vs employees : 3 salary situations and how to handle them

Imagine the scene : you are sitting at your desk, happily going along your normal HR activities, when an employee (let’s call him John) enters your office and expresses some concern over his compensation. More specifically, he says, he knows that some of his former colleagues at his previous employer, “who were earning the exact…

The best order in which to apply salary increases in any organisation

Salary review time is approaching fast and so today I wanted to write about  the order in which we apply salary increases. Does it matter ? Or is it totally irrelevant to what you are trying to achieve when going through your internal and external equity reviews ? First, let’s have a look at the…

Reader Question – What to consider for salary planning ?

Today’s reader query is suggested by a question asked by a LinkedIn member, who wanted to know : “What indicators are important in your company planning (changing, reviewing) pay policy for next year ?”. Just like for any other year, I suggest going through a four-step approach : 1 – Is my pay policy still…