Another part of building a pay system is surveying the pay that other organizations provide for similar jobs. A pay survey is collection of data on compensation rates for workers performing similar jobs in other organizations. An employer may use surveys conducted by other organizations, or it may decide to conduct its own survey.
Using Prepared Pay Surveys
Many different surveys are available from a variety of sources. The Internet provides a large number of pay survey sources and data on-line. However, use of these sources requires caution because their accuracy and completeness may not be verifiable. Properly using surveys from other sources requires that certain question be addressed:
Participants: Is the survey a realistic sample of those employers with whom the organization competes for employees?
Broad-based: Is the survey balanced so that organizations of varying sizes, industries, and locales are included?
Timeliness: How current are the data (determined by the date when the survey was conducted)?
Methodology: How established is the survey, and how qualified are those who conducted it ?
Job matches: Does it contain job summaries so that appropriate matches to job descriptions can be made?