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Compensation: Why It (Almost) Doesn’t Matter 95

they’re in the form of incentives or bonuses not yet
earned. (Base pay and benefits adjustments are usually
reflected in personnel records fairly quickly.)
• Refresh your own memory. There may well be other
adjustments or perks that you gave at your discretion
since the last performance or periodic review that aren’t
yet documented anywhere at all!
• Discuss with the employee. You might find that an
employee misunderstands some aspect of the compen-
sation package (particularly perks). For example, one
year I had a spare set of season tickets for the local
orchestra and I casually gave them to a particularly val-
ued employee. The next year we had an embarrassing
moment when he came by my office to pick up his set
of tickets for the current season.

Surveys
Now you know what your organization is doing. The next step is
to find out how your compensation program compares with
what other organizations are doing.
This used to be an arduous, time-consuming task, but here,
once again, the Internet comes to the rescue. Survey results on
compensation and rewards for just about every job description
under the sun are available at the click of a mouse. Web sites
come and go, so as always, use a search engine to find out
what’s available right now. (Type “salary survey” into your
favorite search engine.) At the time of writing, these are
the three best resources:
Making It Real
• www.salary.com
Most compensation survey
• www.wageweb.com sites include “power search” functions
• www.bls.gov/ncs/ that allow you to adjust for geograph-
(U.S. Bureau of ic location and industry specializa-
Labor Statistics tions.Take time to learn and use
National these features.The little effort
Compensation involved will more than pay off in the
Survey) quality,accuracy,and relevance of the
information you receive.