Surveys and the Internet
Having accurate information on pay rates in the market is critical for an organization. If an organization is paying employees too high relative to the market, then their costs and competitiveness will be impacted. If the organization pays too low relative to the market, then the quality of employees may be below average and/or turnover may be high.
The most accurate information would come from companies that are competitors for labor (they hire employees from your organization and vice versa). The jobs from each company would be carefully matched and salary information would be exchanged. This process can be costly, time-consuming, and it has some legal risks (price-fixing, collusion, etc.).
More commonly, companies use an independent third party to collect the data from each company, help ensure the accuracy of job matching, and then provide participating companies with detailed survey results. These surveys can be expensive too.
The Internet is a source of survey information, although some of the information is unreliable. The best way to determine reliability is to evaluate how the data was collected. Many rely on voluntary disclosure of salary information from readers. These surveys generally don't represent an average cross-section of employees. Headhunters often disclose salary statistics, based on employees that they place. Neither does this represent a good cross section of employees since less than 5% of employees are placed by headhunters, and those they place are relatively highly paid.
Below is a list of web sites that appear to have more reliable data than most on the Internet.
Kenexa Corporation sponsors the website salary.com. Salary data is reported (for a fee) by geographic region (Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, West Coast)
Data on compensation is gathered from among more than 1400
employers of information systems professionals, nationwide,
including corporations of all sizes, in every industry group, and
from every U.S. region.
http://www.salary.com/
Payscale can provide data (for a fee)
matched by company size, industry, and location. PayScale gathers
data directly from employees at companies. They have gathered over
17 million incumbent profiles across 7,000 job titles and 250
unique compensable factors from the United States, Canada, United
Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
http://www.payscale.com/hr/default
The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey data.
The OES wage data are available for California, 25 Metropolitan
Statistical Areas (MSA) covering 34 counties in California and five "Balance of State"
Regions that cover the remaining 24
counties.
http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes free wage data by
occupation and region. The data lags by a few years, but is a convenient reference.
The survey only defines jobs broadly, does not provide industry breakouts, and groups junior and senior level
employees together.
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm
AreaVibes has a salary calculator that allows people to calculate the impact of cost of living
on take home pay in different cities. The salary calculator compares the cost of living in each city,
and displays the amount a person would need to earn in the new city.
http://www.areavibes.com/salary-calculator/
