HR OPERATIONS
Develop a pay philosophy, build salary structures, evaluate market competitiveness, and design total rewards strategies appropriate for your company’s size and stage — so compensation decisions are strategic, defensible, and consistent.
When every pay decision is a negotiation
A candidate asks for $15K more than you planned. A top performer finds out a newer hire makes more. A manager pushes for an off-cycle raise because they’re afraid of losing someone. Every compensation decision is made in isolation, based on who’s asking, who’s threatening to leave, and what the last person got. There’s no philosophy, no structure, no data — just a growing patchwork of one-off decisions that’s creating pay equity problems, budget unpredictability, and a workforce that suspects the system is unfair. Because right now, it is.
Who This Is For
- Companies making compensation decisions ad hoc with no underlying philosophy or structure — every hire and raise is a one-off negotiation
- Organizations losing candidates at the offer stage or employees to competitors and suspecting a pay issue but lacking data to confirm it
- Leadership teams preparing for board, investor, or regulatory scrutiny on compensation practices and pay equity
- Companies expanding into new markets or geographies and needing structured pay differentiation
- HR leaders who need to build the business case for compensation adjustments — with market data, not anecdotes
- Organizations that have never had formal salary bands and want to establish them before the inconsistencies become a legal or retention problem
What We Build
A compensation system is more than a salary survey and a spreadsheet. We build the full framework that allows your organization to make consistent, competitive, and defensible pay decisions:
- Pay philosophy: Where does your organization intend to position itself in the market — and why? This guides every compensation decision that follows
- Job family architecture: Grouping roles into families and levels so you have a logical structure for pay, career progression, and benchmarking
- Salary bands: Defined ranges for each job level with clear minimums, midpoints, and maximums — so managers have guardrails and employees can see a path
- Market benchmarking: Where your pay actually falls relative to market using published survey data — not self-reported aggregator sites
- Pay equity analysis: Identifying where pay gaps exist across demographics, tenure, or how someone was hired — before they become legal exposure
- Total rewards strategy: Compensation is more than base pay. We evaluate the full picture — base, variable, benefits, equity, perks — and how it positions you competitively
Packages
Compensation Foundation — $12,000–$18,000
A foundational compensation framework for companies that have never had formal salary structures. Best for organizations with up to 30 unique roles that need a pay philosophy, job families, salary bands, and market data to start making consistent decisions.
What you get: Pay philosophy development aligned to your business strategy and talent market, job family architecture and leveling framework, salary band creation for up to 30 roles with defined ranges, market benchmarking using published compensation survey data, summary of competitive positioning by role family, and a manager guide for using salary bands in hiring and pay decisions.
Timeline: 4–6 weeks typical.
Compensation Architecture — $22,000–$42,000
A comprehensive compensation framework for organizations that need the full system — including pay equity analysis, total rewards strategy, and a communication plan for rolling it out. Best for companies with 30+ roles, multiple locations, or existing pay structures that need a complete overhaul.
What you get: Everything in the Compensation Foundation, plus: job evaluation methodology for consistent role leveling across the organization, salary structures for all roles (not capped at 30), pay equity analysis identifying gaps by demographic group, tenure, and hire source, total rewards strategy evaluating the full compensation picture beyond base pay, geographic pay differentiation framework (for multi-location organizations), communication plan and manager talking points for rolling out salary bands, and a 90-minute executive presentation of findings and recommendations.
Timeline: 6–10 weeks typical, depending on number of roles and locations.
How It Works
Discovery Call
A free 30-minute conversation to understand your current compensation landscape — what exists today, what’s driving the urgency, and what you need the system to accomplish. We’ll recommend the right package and scope.
Data Collection & Job Analysis
We gather your current pay data, job descriptions, and organizational structure. We analyze your existing roles, group them into job families and levels, and identify the benchmarking approach that fits your industry and talent market.
Benchmarking & Structure Design
We benchmark your roles against published market data, build salary bands, and identify where your pay sits relative to market and where gaps exist — by role, level, and (for Compensation Architecture) by demographic group. We design the salary structure with ranges that balance competitiveness, internal equity, and budget reality.
Delivery & Rollout Support
We present findings and the completed compensation framework to leadership, deliver the manager communication toolkit, and support the rollout. For organizations with significant pay adjustments needed, we help prioritize the remediation plan.
Frequently Combined With
Compensation rarely exists in isolation. Clients frequently pair it with:
- Performance Management System Design — Performance and compensation should be connected systems. If you’re building salary bands, you need a performance framework that determines how people move through them.
- Employee Engagement & Retention Strategy — When compensation emerges as a significant retention driver, the engagement data helps prioritize where to invest first.
- DEI Consulting — When pay equity analysis reveals systemic gaps that require a broader equity audit of talent practices.
- HR Department Assessment & Optimization — When compensation is one of several HR infrastructure areas that need attention. The HR Assessment identifies which to prioritize.
[Placeholder: Add a testimonial from a compensation engagement. Focus on the shift from ad hoc decisions to a structured framework — and the confidence it gave leadership in making pay decisions.]
Common Questions
Where do you get market data?
We use published compensation surveys from established providers — not self-reported aggregator sites like Glassdoor or Salary.com, which are notoriously unreliable. Published surveys collect data directly from employers with verified job matching, which produces far more accurate benchmarks. The specific surveys depend on your industry and roles. We’ll identify the right data sources during scoping.
What if our current pay is significantly below market?
That’s more common than you’d think — and it’s better to know than to guess. We’ll quantify the gap, identify which roles and employees are most at risk, and build a prioritized remediation plan that balances urgency with budget constraints. Not every gap needs to be closed immediately, but the ones creating retention risk should be addressed first.
Should we share salary bands with employees?
Increasingly, yes — and in many states, you’re legally required to share ranges in job postings. Transparency builds trust, reduces the perception of unfairness, and helps employees understand their growth path. We design the communication plan and manager talking points to support the transition to transparency, including how to handle questions from employees who discover they’re below the band midpoint.
We have employees in multiple states. How does that work?
Geographic pay differentiation is built into the Compensation Architecture package. We establish pay zones based on cost-of-labor data (not cost-of-living) and create location-adjusted salary bands. This ensures you’re competitive in each market without overpaying in lower-cost areas or underpaying in higher-cost ones.