World at Work standards recommend using three sources of salary data to benchmark a job. With that in mind, it’s no coincidence that PayScale’s customers have access to three unique data offerings inside our compensation platform: Crowdsourced Data, Company-Sourced Data and Traditional Data. These three different sources of data complement each other perfectly, providing greater benefits together than any one data source could provide on its own.
Crowdsourced data
In the modern labor market, employees have free and easy access to salary information online. They are becoming more informed about their value in the market and are more likely than ever to ask questions about your organization’s pay process and methodology. As a result, compensation professionals must understand the nuances of various jobs and make sure that their methodology for pricing jobs is as detailed and as transparent as possible.
When it comes to crowdsourced data, it’s not all created equal. Founded in 2002, PayScale has created the world’s largest crowdsourced data set, with 55+ million profiles and 250+ compensable factors. More than 150,000 new salary survey records are added to our database every month, and our market compensation database is updated daily to ensure the most detailed, up-to-date compensation information available. This dataset allows you to keep up with fast-moving jobs and to drill into the specifics of what drives compensation for a particular job.
Not only does our crowdsourced data have unparalleled breadth and depth, but it also goes through a rigorous validation process. PayScale applies a set of proprietary algorithms to ensure the accuracy of every data point used in our compensation models and reports. Our data team continuously compares PayScale data with external sources, and our research has shown that our market compensation data is strongly correlated with other sources, including data submitted by employers.
In order to price the hottest, fastest moving jobs in the market, you need to have crowd-sourced data as part of your compensation strategy.
Company-Sourced Data
Our Company-Sourced Data is an aggregated dataset derived from participating customers’ HRIS data. This data set allows our customers to be a part of the data sharing community and understand what their talent competitors are paying in the market. So far, more than 1,000 customers have taken advantage of this data offering. Many have found it helpful:
“PayScale Company Sourced Data helped me provide a better, more accurate comparison for the position that I was looking to benchmark. Without the [PayScale Company Sourced National Survey], I may have ended up comping the position too low… I love it!”
-Michelle Huse, PHP, CCP, Manager of Compensation, Baylor University Human Resources
This dataset gives our customers access to employer submitted data, without the burden of participation. It also is released quarterly, giving customers insight into the fastest moving jobs.
Traditional (Standard) Surveys
PayScale has strong relationships with the most-trusted survey vendors in the industry. Our compensation platform gives our customers easy access to third-party data sources such as Mercer, Radford, Aon-Hewitt and Willis Towers Watson in our software products. Customers can easily access their survey data within our products. With the PayScale and Mercer strategic alliance, we offer the option of bundling Mercer data products with your PayScale compensation software.
Learn more
If you haven’t evaluated your selection of data sources recently, now’s the time to do so, as using the right compensation data for your organization has never been more important. To get a review of all the available data sources (including pros and cons), as well as suggestions for how to choose the right ones for your organization, check out our guide The Compensation Data Landscape.
To see how PayScale’s compensation data and software can help you, request a demo.
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