Ten Questions to Ask Yourself about Compensation Surveys

Abstract

Most compensation professionals use compensation surveys to some extent. Survey users should be aware that some surveys are less accurate than others, and even valid surveys may be misused or misleading. The authors provide ten questions users of compensation surveys should ask themselves about the survey before using it to make critical compensation decisions. The questions include: "How well does the survey describe the job being measured?" "What is the effective date of the data?" and "Who were the participants in the survey?" The authors encourage compensation survey users to apply these ten questions to any compensation survey before using the survey in organizational decision-making.