Move along, nothing to see here !

It’s March. Salary review and bonus time preparation in many companies. The cartoon below reminded me of one of my former managers, who complained to me that there was a risk of loss of confidentiality when my team was reviewing performance ratings, making pay increase simulations, and calculating incentive payouts. Yet he was the same…

Are you using comparatios without thinking ?

In the compensation world, comparatio is defined as an employee’s base pay divided by the midpoint of the salary range linked to the employee’s job grade. Comparatios can be expressed as a percentage (110%) or a number (0.9). Uses of comparatios We use them mostly at the time of salary reviews, in companies that use…

Do you pay for the job or the nationality ?

A recent article reviewing salary differences between nationalities in the GCC made me think. Obviously, in the region, we are all aware of these differences, even if we rarely mention them. According to the annual Gulf Business salary survey, “In the UAE, a Western expat makes 12.6 per cent more than an Arab expat and…

How to make management look into real inflation for salary budgets

Ayesha joined my readership recently and asked : “I would love to hear some suggestions on what to do when market inflation rates are far higher than what the official sources as well the generally accepted sources like the The Economic Intelligence Unit magazine report… and we have to convince the organization to allocate higher…

All you need to know : from compensation surveys to salary ranges and salary review

Frances, one of my readers, recently commented to me as follows : I have to create salary ranges and compare the current salary to market data. This will allow me to make the determination if the person’s pay is within the acceptable range. Year-end is approaching and I am starting to get more questions around…

Updating salary ranges… or not ?

When the time of salary review approaches, most Compensation managers will start preparing by reviewing the salary ranges in their organisation. Using data from compensation providers, we look at the midpoint, minimum and maximum of our salary ranges. Do they still reflect the market ? The first consideration should be “how do we define market”…

3 factors influencing the promotion rate for your organisation

As we got into salary review time or mid-year reviews, colleagues have asked me, almost every year, the same question about the promotion rate : “What is a reasonable benchmark for the number of employees to be promoted each year ?” Now, bear with me please because my answer is one that usually is not…