How to read a salary benchmark before you decide

When a general manager asks "are we paying right?", the honest answer has several layers. It depends on which jobs are compared, with whom, at which percentile and what counts as pay. A serious benchmark makes those layers explicit; a weak one hides them behind an average.

1. Jobs are matched by content, not by title

The same title means different things in two companies. An "operations manager" may run a plant with three hundred people or coordinate three suppliers. That is why every job is matched on content: scope of responsibility, level of decision, size of team and knowledge required. Only then is the comparison like for like.

When you read the study, check the matching sheet for the critical roles. If there is none, the comparison is by label and the number that follows is worth little.

2. The peer group is agreed with you

The reference is not "the market" in the abstract: it is a set of companies you compete with for the same people. In our method the group is defined at the start with the client, by industry, size and country, and each cut is reported only when it gathers at least five companies, with none weighing more than a quarter of the sample. No single large competitor defines the result on its own.

3. Percentiles say more than the average

An average hides dispersion. A useful study shows where each job sits at P10, P25, median, P75 and P90, and reports a percentile only when the sample supports it. The real question is not "what does the market pay" but "where in the distribution do we want to pay this job, and why".

• Median (P50): the usual reference for most roles.
• P75 or above: critical, scarce or flight-risk roles.
• P25 or below: an exposure worth explaining before someone else discovers it.

4. The whole package is compared

Base salary, guaranteed variable, target variable and valued benefits are reported separately and as a cumulative total. Two companies with the same base can be far apart in total reward. Reading only the base leads to adjusting what was not the problem.

5. Every gap comes with its cost

The study ends in a budget decision. Every gap identified is therefore translated into scenarios with payroll impact, prioritised by risk and by role. HR and Finance decide with the same document on the table.

In our Salary Benchmark the full journey, from brief to findings presentation, takes sixteen business days as a reference, confirmed at the start of every engagement.