Purpose: This guide will introduce you to the power of compensation benchmarking to ensure competitive and fair pay scales, helping you attract and retain top talent. This guide empowers you to leverage data-backed insights and Mercer benchmarks to optimize your compensation strategy effectively. 

Table of Contents

• Compensation benchmarking overview
• Accessing compensation benchmarking
  • Employee job titles details
  • Pay data and benchmarks section
• Compensation benchmarking search
  • Searching in BambooHR (using Mercer)
  • Independent Mercer search
    • Adding a Mercer benchmark to a job title

What is compensation benchmarking?

Compensation benchmarking is a strategic process companies use to compare their compensation packages against those offered by other companies in the same industry or geographic area.

This process involves:

• Data collection: Companies gather data on salaries and other compensation elements from various sources, such as industry surveys, salary databases, and market research reports.
• Analysis: The collected data is analyzed to determine the market rate for specific roles, considering factors like job function, level of experience, industry, and location.
• Comparison: Companies compare their current compensation packages to the market data to see how they stack up against competitors.
• Adjustment: Based on the analysis, companies may utilize compensation planning to adjust their compensation structures to ensure they are competitive, equitable, and aligned with their strategic goals.

Compensation benchmarking sets you and your company up for success so you can:

• Know how much your company is paying for roles by location.
• Know how much the market is paying.
• Compare the data and make decisions.

This will not only save you time and money, but also give you the confidence that you have the compensation data you need to help your business thrive. BambooHR's compensation benchmarking is powered by Mercer, a leading global consulting firm specializing in talent solutions. Beyond leveraging Mercer's robust market insights, customers can also create custom benchmarks tailored to their unique organizational needs.

Compensation benchmarking in BambooHR

Compensation benchmarking is a critical tool for your company to ensure you remain competitive, fair, and aligned with market trends, ultimately supporting your ability to attract and retain the talent necessary for success. Compensation benchmarking in BambooHR:

• Supports data-backed compensation decisions: By providing reliable benchmarks, compensation benchmarking helps ensure fair pay scales, which is critical for retaining employees.
• Provides insights for recruitment and retention: Compensation benchmarking directly addresses pain points like the difficulty of finding accurate benchmarks and the time wasted switching between platforms.
• Integrates trusted compensation data: We integrate Mercer data directly into BambooHR, eliminating the need for switching between different platforms.

Please note, the employee's salary, Mercer benchmarks, and custom benchmarks are converted to the company's default currency that can be found and edited in Settings > Account > General Settings.

As a Full Admin, you can access compensation benchmarking from your BambooHR homepage. Under the My Stuff widget, select Compensation Benchmarks

The main page displays the compensation benchmarks for all company job titles by location. Every job title configured within Settings > Employee Fields > Job Titles is included in this list, even if no employee is currently assigned to that job title.

Each row in the table displays the job title, level, location, and pay rate. It also includes a visualization of employees in each job title, location pairing, pay band, and relevant benchmarks.

1. Group By: Group the job title-location pairs by Department, Division, Job Group (from levels and bands), Job Level (from levels and bands), Location, or Manager. If levels and bands are not set up, Job Group and Job Level options will still be displayed, but selecting a Group by option related to levels and bands will show a page with a button that directs the admin to Settings > Compensation to set them up.
2. Show: This defaults to All Employees in Filled Roles, but you can filter the table data by Location (all, United States, non-US, or remote) and Role (filled, empty, or all).
3. Currency: Use this dropdown to select your currency. The currency selector only changes the current view; custom benchmarks remain stored in their originally defined currency.
4. Group: All job title-location pairs will have their own section based on the Group By selection. This table includes columns for: Job Title & Level (as configured in levels and bands), Location, Pay Rate (median pay for employees in that job title-location pairing).
5. Job title: Clicking the hyperlinked job title will open the Job Title Details page. On the job title detail page, users can view a table of employees and a visualization that compares employees against added benchmarks, showing who falls within or outside the specified range.
6. Search Mercer: Admins can clickSearch Mercer in the upper right corner of the page to search the Mercer Benchmarks database independently of the job titles they currently have listed in BambooHR.
7. Upload Benchmarks: Admins can click Upload Benchmarks to import multiple custom benchmarks.

In BambooHR, benchmarks are powered by Mercer, a leading data provider. Customers can use the Mercer data set to find equivalent job titles that match their own.

To independently explore the data without associating it with a specific job title click on Search Mercer from the overview page. This feature is especially beneficial for customers considering establishing a new position within their organization.

When you click Search Mercer from the overview page, the Search for Job Pay Data modal opens. Enter the Job Title, Primary Location, Secondary Location, Company Size, and Industry. Once you've initiated a search, the search results table will populate with Mercer job pay data.

The drop-down includes Country (Primary Location), Secondary Location, Company Size, and Industry.

The dropdown consists of sections for:

• Country (Primary Location): 120+ countries are available to search from (see above for complete list).
• Secondary Locations: Depending on the country, you can filter by region, state/province, and/or city to narrow down your market focus.
• Company Size: Select tiers between employee count and revenue.
• Industry: Select from multiple industries.

From the Search Results table, click on View Job Description to view the Mercer job description. This information is essential in evaluating whether the Mercer job title aligns well with your company's job title.