Even though job evaluations represent the organization's value system for its jobs, the organization must still consider market rates in order to compete in recruiting, to adjust its pay policy relative to market rates, and to adjust its pay standardization to market averages. This last purpose is also important for adjusting pay levels to reflect inflation in the general economy. Several Department of Labor indexes might be used to determine increases in cost of living, but they are based on selected purchases and subject to statistical artifacts, such as variations in the importance of the purchases as indicators. Better is to use average market rates for benchmark jobs, because these rates reflect both market adjustment to inflation and occupational organizational supply and demand effects.
Optimally, data should be gathered by questionnaires that are followed up with visit or telephone conversations. For every job reported by an employer, the following minimum pay data should be gathered: the number of employees with the job title, their average rate of pay, and the number of hours in their workweek. Compensation should be summarized by job surveyed to show the following (in separate lines for each employer and listed in columns): the date of survey, number of employees in the class or job, number of hours in workweeks, and average pay of employees (converted to the same period for all employees). For each job or class, the surveyor should then compute the totals for employers, employees, and hours in the workweek; the average workweek per employer; and weighted average pay (number of employees times average pay divided by total number of employees).