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
- Placement summary: A clear view of where current pay sits against the new bands — who falls below, in, and above — with the cost to bring everyone to the minimum, so you can plan with confidence
- 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 45 unique roles in a single market 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 45 roles with defined ranges, market benchmarking to your primary (corporate-office) market using published compensation survey data, a placement summary showing where current pay falls against the new bands — who’s below, in, and above, with the cost to bring everyone to the minimum — 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 — multiple salary structures, multi-market benchmarking, formal job evaluation, or the rigor that board, investor, or regulatory scrutiny demands. Best for companies beyond 45 roles, with multiple locations or structures, or existing pay structures that need a full rebuild.
What you get: Everything in the Compensation Foundation, plus: job evaluation methodology for consistent role leveling across the organization, salary structures for all roles (no 45-role cap), multiple salary structures where the organization needs them (for example, corporate, field, and sales), multi-market benchmarking with a geographic pay differentiation framework for multi-location organizations, total rewards strategy evaluating the full compensation picture beyond base pay, a communication plan and manager talking points for rolling out salary bands, a live manager enablement session, and a 90-minute executive presentation of findings and recommendations.
Timeline: 6–10 weeks typical, depending on number of roles and locations.
Add-Ons
Available with either package and scoped to what you actually need:
- Internal Equity Analysis: A closer look at pay equity across your existing population — from placement guidance to cohort or regression-level analysis testing for unexplained differences by demographic group, tenure, or hire source. Because this work can carry legal sensitivity, we run it in coordination with your counsel.
- Job Description Development: Benchmarking-ready job descriptions for the roles that don’t have current, usable ones.
- Incentive & Variable Pay Design: Design of annual, sales, or multi-plan incentive structures for the roles where pay should follow results.
- Pay Transparency Compliance: Multi-state posting ranges and rollout guidance for organizations with obligations across jurisdictions.
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 and level. We design the salary structure with ranges that balance competitiveness, internal equity, and budget reality. A deeper look at pay equity across demographics, tenure, and hire source is available as an add-on, run in coordination with your counsel.
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 — closing the gaps that create the most retention risk first.
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 the internal equity analysis reveals systemic gaps that call for 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.
Do you do a full pay equity audit?
Every engagement includes a high-level placement summary — where current pay falls against the new bands, so you can see and plan for any gaps. A deeper pay equity analysis — testing for unexplained differences across demographics, tenure, or hire source — is available as an add-on. Because that analysis can carry legal sensitivity, we run it in coordination with your counsel, which keeps the work appropriately protected. We identify the patterns and the right level of analysis; the legal determinations stay with your attorney.
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. For organizations with posting obligations across multiple states, the Pay Transparency Compliance add-on handles the state-by-state requirements.
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.