Same Old Same Old (Jan 7, 2008)

In the early 1990’s, survey participants typically received a beautifully-laid out hardcopy report showing half a dozen or so market stats (25th and 75th percentiles, perhaps 10th and 90th percentiles, and a couple of measures of average).

But if you had e.g. a 60th percentile pay strategy you were either out of luck or faced some big-time interpolations. And when you wanted to determine your overall competitive position for year-end planning you had a boatload of internal and market data which first needed to be typed/retyped into a spreadsheet. Not pretty.

So here we are some 15 years later and, in most situations, there’s not been much real improvement.

PDF files have largely replaced hard copy reports – but that only provides cost-savings to the survey vendor. And when Excel files are provided, they’re often so heavily formatted that their data cannot be readily imported into pay analysis software such as our own Pay Integrator.

And even the new Internet-based sources of market pay data still provide the same limited range of statistics as those of the early 1990s - and still require participants to enter/re-enter their own internal pay and compute there own competitive position.

So, like Network’s Howard Beale, you’re probably mad as hell and not going to take this any more – and hopefully look to surveys like those our UltraSurveyXL service produce which provide every participant exactly the statistics and exactly the competitive assessments he/she needs without any additional work.

Dirty Little Secret (Jan 7, 2008)

Assume an organization participates in a management-level published survey with nine other participants, and the other nine participants pay an average salary of $125,000 while this organization pays 20 percent less ($100,000).

The published survey therefore reports an average salary for all ten participants of $122,500. The problem, of course, is that the true competitive pay for this organization is $125,000 - not the reported $122,500 which includes its own pay.

Because reliance on pay data from surveys in which organizations participate is so common, many organizations are understating their variations from market by serious amounts.

UltraSurveyXL is designed to produce survey results which exclude each participant’s own data from the market statistics provided in its custom results – so no dirty little secret to worry about.

Copout of the Average (Jan 7, 2008)

Joe is told by his doctor that his appendix is infected and needs to be removed. He goes to a second doctor who says his appendix is not infected and does not need to be removed. So he averages the results and concludes that one-half of his appendix must be removed.

Survey A tells Susan that the market rate for a certain job in a certain labor pool is $40,000, but survey B says $50,000. So she averages the results and determines the market to be $45,000. And so what can we conclude?

* First, either Survey A must be wrong, or Survey B must be wrong, or both must be wrong.
* Second, if one of the surveys is correct, her conclusion must be wrong.
* Third, the only way she’s correct is if both surveys are precisely off the market by precisely the same amount but in precisely opposite directions. That’s a lot of precision to bank on.

Comp pros routinely find such evidence of incorrect published survey data, and have been similarly forced to average them out to produce market estimates that are guaranteed incorrect.

Conducting an inexpensive and quick custom pay survey with UltraSurveyXL is a great way to validate the published surveys you use, supplement their missing data, and fine tune your market estimates – and avoid the copout of the average.