Author: mykkahherner

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, is a Compensation and Human Resources Professional with ten+ years of HR experience. He has designed compensation strategies for over 400 organizations, poising compensation to drive business results. Mykkah specializes in linking performance with compensation, enabling effective conversations about compensation, and creating organizational change. He is passionate about driving the evolution of companies through bringing compensation into the modern age.

pay transparency

pay transparency

7 Tips to Increase Pay Transparency in Your Organization

Pay transparency has increased in prevalence over the past few years, and with good reason. Transparent pay practices lead to higher satisfaction and lower intent to leave, according to a 2015 PayScale study. Transparency also improves performance, according to this study in a restaurant setting. With so many compensation data sources available...

pay transparency

pay transparency

7 Tips to Increase Pay Transparency in Your Organization

Pay transparency has increased in prevalence over the past few years, and with good reason. Transparent pay practices lead to higher satisfaction and lower intent to leave, according to a 2015 PayScale study. Transparency also improves performance, according to this study in a restaurant setting. With so many compensation data sources available...

Readiness Checklist: How Do You Know the Right Level of Pay Transparency for Your Org?

With companies like Buffer and Gravity Payments raising the bar on radical pay transparency and employees expecting more information about pay and pay decisions, more companies are exploring what it means to be transparent about pay. PayScale data suggest that about half of all organizations are aiming for pay transparency in 2017....

Readiness Checklist: How Do You Know the Right Level of Pay Transparency for Your Org?

With companies like Buffer and Gravity Payments raising the bar on radical pay transparency and employees expecting more information about pay and pay decisions, more companies are exploring what it means to be transparent about pay. PayScale data suggest that about half of all organizations are aiming for pay transparency in 2017....

Readiness Checklist: How Do You Know the Right Level of Pay Transparency for Your Org?

With companies like Buffer and Gravity Payments raising the bar on radical pay transparency and employees expecting more information about pay and pay decisions, more companies are exploring what it means to be transparent about pay. PayScale data suggest that about half of all organizations are aiming for pay transparency in 2017....

7 Tips for Moving to a Pay-for-Performance Culture

Companies have seen a bit of a revolution in performance-based pay in the past few years. Most have removed the rank-and-yank style of performance management. Some are removing performance ratings altogether to emphasize the future-looking, coaching-based conversations managers should be having with employees. If the intent of performance management is truly to...

7 Tips for Moving to a Pay-for-Performance Culture

Companies have seen a bit of a revolution in performance-based pay in the past few years. Most have removed the rank-and-yank style of performance management. Some are removing performance ratings altogether to emphasize the future-looking, coaching-based conversations managers should be having with employees. If the intent of performance management is truly to...

merit matrix

merit matrix

The Merit Matrix: Useful Tool or Relic of a Budget-Rich Past?

There are a few interesting conversations going around HR and compensation conferences this year. One has to do with performance management, going “ratingless,” and the best ways to link performance with pay. One of the underlying questions seems to be whether merit matrices are still the way to go when it comes...

merit matrix

merit matrix

The Merit Matrix: Useful Tool or Relic of a Budget-Rich Past?

There are a few interesting conversations going around HR and compensation conferences this year. One has to do with performance management, going “ratingless,” and the best ways to link performance with pay. One of the underlying questions seems to be whether merit matrices are still the way to go when it comes...

variable pay

variable pay

Variable Pay: Is There a Difference Between a Bonus and an Incentive?

PayScale’s 2017 Compensation Best Practices Report (CBPR) revealed that nearly three-quarters of organizations give some type of variable pay. At a time when increase budgets are tight, organizations are starting to shift their rewards towards variable pay over fixed costs (salary). Doing so allows them to really shell out the cash for...

WorkHuman Conference Recap

WorkHuman Conference Recap

Recognizing People: A Recap of the WorkHuman Conference

Sometimes you come home from an industry conference having learned a new thing or two, sometimes you meet new connections in the industry, sometimes you come back with a to-do list of ways to improve your organization. Usually you come home to a full inbox of emails and, if you’re lucky, you...

Flight Risks

Flight Risks

Two Ways to Improve Retention: From Flight Risk Jobs to Business Goals

We talk a lot about uncertainty, especially when it comes to keeping, motivating, rewarding, and attracting an increasingly mobile workforce. PayScale’s 2017 Compensation Best Practices Report found that 56 percent of employers consider retention a major concern. With such a mobile workforce, organizations are exploring many options to keep their best people,...

Building a Compensation Plan: An Exercise in Collaboration

Building a compensation plan from scratch can be intimidating if you don’t know where to start. In fact, even if you do know where to start, the process can be pretty daunting. At PayScale, we’ve been talking with companies for years, helping them develop their compensation strategies, build their pay ranges, and...

Building a Compensation Plan: An Exercise in Collaboration

Building a compensation plan from scratch can be intimidating if you don’t know where to start. In fact, even if you do know where to start, the process can be pretty daunting. At PayScale, we’ve been talking with companies for years, helping them develop their compensation strategies, build their pay ranges, and...

Compensation Structure: What is It and Types

Most organizations follow some type of hierarchical structure, with different roles, responsibilities and management levels. But, having the hierarchy is only one part of the puzzle. Companies have to determine renumeration for each position on the org chart. This is where a well-planned compensation structure comes into play. A compensation structure, also...

Which Compensation Structure Is Right for Your Company?

Compensation structures continue to evolve, and they usually do so to help organizations keep current with both market and workforce trends. Some may wonder what compensation structures are. Loosely, “compensation structure” refers to the various ways that companies can organize their pay practices. They provide guidelines for pay that help organizations identify...

Will Companies Replace Colleges as Places of Higher Learning?

On the heels of the final four championship, PayScale’s 2017 College ROI Report puts the average cost of a Big Ten education at $167,214. From there it goes up to Pac-12 at $194,833, Atlantic Coast Conference at $ 196,800, to an Ivy League average education cost of $249,125. My own alma mater...

Healthcare Happenings: 2017 Compensation Best Practices

A few years back, I consulted for a hospital in a somewhat rural area that really needed their nurses to increase their level of certification. As a result, someone had decided that they would add $500 in base pay for every certification obtained by each nurse. It was a valid idea in...

Tech Industry Trends

Tech Industry Trends

Tech Industry Trends and Treats

PayScale has a work-hard, live-well culture. The first time we tapped our kegs on a Friday, I wondered how it came to be that having beer at work was a perk of the job. My closet is bursting with PayScale t-shirt and sweatshirt pride. And our 10-year veterans get sent on a...

College Costs Are Still Rising: What’s That Mean for Businesses?

My nephew is in the final throes of deciding where he will matriculate. I remember, vaguely, being 17 and deciding on colleges, and it was a much different process back then. I loosely decided where I wanted to go geographically. I had a very vague idea of what I might want to...

The State of Manufacturing

Early in my career at PayScale, I worked with a manufacturing company that had recently done some merging. In fact, they had four different regions in the U.S. and another three in Canada, each on their own HRIS systems and even worse, each on their own payroll systems. Identifying the current pay...

Pay Equity Action Plan

Pay Equity Action Plan

Develop Your Pay Equity Action Plan

Happy Equal Pay Day? Typically not. Equal Pay Day is the day in the year when women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the prior year. When looking at the median wage for all women when compared with the median wage for all men, it takes more than three months for...

Pay Equity Action Plan

Pay Equity Action Plan

Develop Your Pay Equity Action Plan

Happy Equal Pay Day? Typically not. Equal Pay Day is the day in the year when women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the prior year. When looking at the median wage for all women when compared with the median wage for all men, it takes more than three months for...

How Much Will Your Bartender Make This St. Paddy’s Day?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! As we prepare to celebrate another great American holiday, I started wondering which cities have the best St. Paddy’s days. I’ve learned a lot along the way: We pinch people who aren’t wearing green as a reminder to wear green so that the leprechauns won’t find them. Chicago...

We’re Training Our Managers Wrong

“I don’t know why, HR wouldn’t let me.” Anyone who’s heard me talk about manager communication knows that I’m passionate about getting rid of the above sentence and the sentiment that managers are neither able to understand nor be accountable for employee pay. Managers play this dual role in organizations: They are...

Want a Better Culture? Set Compensation Strategy Accordingly

Organizational culture matters more now than ever. It is the unique and varied personality that is associated with each organization. It is the set of values and rules that unite those in the organization, guiding them toward a similar business goal. With five generations in the workforce, we’re seeing more diverse needs...

Top 5 Reasons Why Focal Reviews Are Better for Your Company

We often get asked whether focal reviews or anniversary compensation reviews are better. Sometimes, smaller businesses start by reviewing comp annually on the anniversary date of the employee. Then, there comes a tipping point where the reviews are scattered throughout the year and it’s a challenge to coordinate the review process. That’s...

PayScale’s 2017 Compensation Best Practices Report Is Here

Today we release the eighth annual installment of PayScale’s Compensation Best Practices Report. A strong theme emerged this year showcasing the connection between compensation and organizational culture. There is evidence that some organizations have discovered this connection, linked compensation with culture and – as a result – are thriving. But, for most,...

PayScale’s 2017 Compensation Best Practices Report Is Here

Today we release the eighth annual installment of PayScale’s Compensation Best Practices Report. A strong theme emerged this year showcasing the connection between compensation and organizational culture. There is evidence that some organizations have discovered this connection, linked compensation with culture and – as a result – are thriving. But, for most,...

PayScale’s 2017 Compensation Best Practices Report Is Here

Today we release the eighth annual installment of PayScale’s Compensation Best Practices Report. A strong theme emerged this year showcasing the connection between compensation and organizational culture. There is evidence that some organizations have discovered this connection, linked compensation with culture and – as a result – are thriving. But, for most,...

Dress Code Killing Your Culture

Dress Code Killing Your Culture

Is Your Dress Code Killing Your Culture?

I grew up outside of New York in the eighties. I got my first tattoo as I was graduating from college in the mid nineties. It was a tiny little tattoo just above my ankle bone. My mom freaked out. She made me promise then and there that I would never get...

federal hiring freeze

federal hiring freeze

Top 3 Trump Actions and Their Business Impact

Trump came into the Oval Office with pen blazing. In his first week and a half in office he has signed seven executive orders, so far, in addition to 11 memoranda. He’s also fleshed out his cabinet nominees, many of whom have already been confirmed. Some of these actions have clear business...

Compensation Resolutions

Compensation Resolutions

7 Compensation Resolutions for 2017

Admittedly I don’t typically make resolutions. I like goals, plans, and measurable actions. Over time, the process of making resolutions has come to feel like empty promises to myself. That said, 2016 was a challenging year for me, so to start 2017 off right I thought I’d get back into the practice...

Compensation Resolutions

Compensation Resolutions

7 Compensation Resolutions for 2017

Admittedly I don’t typically make resolutions. I like goals, plans, and measurable actions. Over time, the process of making resolutions has come to feel like empty promises to myself. That said, 2016 was a challenging year for me, so to start 2017 off right I thought I’d get back into the practice...

Top 16 Posts 2016 Part Two

Top 16 Posts 2016 Part Two

Top 16 Compensation Blog Posts from 2016 (Part Two)

Yesterday we counted down the first half of the top 16 most viewed compensation blog posts from 2016. Without further ado, here are the rest! #8: Are Promotions Leaving Your Employees Feeling Short Changed? Have you ever given an employee a promotion and a raise and their face falls? In the eighth...

Top 16 in 2016

Top 16 in 2016

Top 16 Compensation Blog Posts from 2016

We’re looking down the end of a very eventful year. As always, it’s a mix of celebration and farewell as start to count down to midnight. From Pokemon Go to the Rio Olympics to the Cubs finally winning the World Series. From Aleppo to Zika with Brexit in between. From Carrie Fisher...

Rudolph vs the rest

Rudolph vs the rest

Special Snowflakes: Rudolph and the War for Talent

Tis the season to listen to Gene Autry on the radio and in every mall singing about the most famous reindeer of all. I’m a fan of the holiday season. I like the lights and the festivities, the gathering of friends and families, the nonstop Hallmark movies that cause me to “get...

2016 Compensation Trends

2016 Compensation Trends

Top Five Compensation Trends from 2016

2016 has been anything but boring. Between the elections, compliance changes, and the ever-increasing competitiveness of talent markets, most of us have been on our toes all year. What trends have impacted compensation the most? In the spirit of the coming new year, let’s count the top five 2016 compensation trends! #5:...

Salary History Question

Salary History Question

“What’s your Salary History?”

The salary history question has been a staple of job interviews for as long as I’ve been interviewing. This year, Massachusetts eliminated that question in one equal pay law, which goes into effect in 2018. There is also a salary history law making its way through the U.S. congress, although it’s unlikely...

workplace gender inequities

workplace gender inequities

New Gender Pay Report Suggests Companies Should Address Workplace Gender Inequities

PayScale recently completed a study of the gender pay gap. This year we studied not just the actual pay gap between men and women, but also the opportunity gap, and how the perception of fair pay by gender plays out. In particular, we asked additional questions that, when correlated, show interesting results...

proposed FLSA changes

proposed FLSA changes

New PayScale Data Shows Companies Complying with Proposed FLSA Changes Anyway

This FLSA stuff is getting convoluted. There’s the FLSA, which is confusing in itself; the proposed changes to the overtime rules originally slated for 12/1; the court-issued injunction to the FLSA changes; and the appeal of the injunction by the Department of Labor. Amidst the ambiguity of official FLSA activity, many organizations...

Pitfalls Talking about Increases

Pitfalls Talking about Increases

Merit Talks: Tis the Season

It’s nearing the holiday season; spirits are bright and you have to tell your star employee that they’re getting an increase that is lower than what they want. If you’re being honest with yourself, it’s lower than what you want it to be too. “Is there any way I can get a...

Pitfalls Talking about Increases

Pitfalls Talking about Increases

Merit Talks: Tis the Season

It’s nearing the holiday season; spirits are bright and you have to tell your star employee that they’re getting an increase that is lower than what they want. If you’re being honest with yourself, it’s lower than what you want it to be too. “Is there any way I can get a...

FLSA stories

FLSA stories

FLSA Stories: It’s Starting to Get Real

Companies are starting to implement changes in anticipation of the FLSA changes happening on December 1st. While there are still some efforts to delay under way, it’s unlikely that the changes will be prevented from happening. The more uncertain thing is whether the Trump administration is likely to keep, or work to...

Presidential and State and local elections Impact Comparison

Presidential and State and local elections Impact Comparison

Election Results Beyond the Presidency: How Do Key State and Local Decisions Impact Compensation?

When’s the last time you earned $7.25/hour? That’s the federal minimum wage guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In Washington State, the minimum wage has been higher than the federally mandated level since January 2005. While the presidential election has been top of mind this week for many Americans, and...

Trump Wins

Trump Wins

Donald Trump Wins. What Are the Implications for Compensation?

It’s official: Donald Trump is the new president. As we prepare for Trump to enter Office mid-January, what changes might his administration bring? Will he honor the former administration’s bold moves around EEO reporting, contractor rules, minimum wage, FLSA, and equal pay laws? Or will it be a brand new day in...

Presidential and State and local elections Impact Comparison

Presidential and State and local elections Impact Comparison

Presidential Consequences: How is the Next President Likely to Impact Compensation

What a decade it’s been for pay in politics! Under President Obama’s administration, we saw changes to EEO reporting, contractor rules, minimum wage, FLSA, and equal pay laws. While the Executive branch of the US Government doesn’t drive everything to do with compliance, they do significantly impact which laws are likely to...

FLSA News Header

FLSA News Header

FLSA News: Will It or Won’t It?

Before we fully surrender ourselves to the last minute election flurry, remember that many things will be impacted by choice of new president. One of those is the fate of the proposed FLSA changes. The changes are currently due to go live on December 1st. There has been a flurry of activity...

Comp Horror Stories

Comp Horror Stories

Halloween Horror Stories: Top 5 Scariest Comp Situations

It’s that time of year where the ghosts and goblins come out at night. This is the time to celebrate the scary things, whether it’s watching a favorite movie, looking at haunted offices, or jumping out at coworkers to give them a fright. We decided to poll some of our customer success...

White House Partnership Header

White House Partnership Header

White House Announces PayScale Commitment to Largest-Ever Non-Compete Data Collection

PayScale is thrilled to announce that we are launching a data collection project in support of the White House’s effort to gain more understanding around the prevalence and impact of non-compete agreements in the U.S. labor market. In a recent fact sheet the White House detailed a few courses of action aimed at understanding what...

Budget Webinar Q and A

Budget Webinar Q and A

Questions for Budgeting Season

We’re well into budgeting season, which means it’s about time for many HR and comp pros to start scrambling around to calculate the necessary information for next year’s comp budget. In yesterday’s How-To webinar on budgeting, we got such great questions from attendees that we thought we’d share them with everyone. For...

Compference 2016 Become a Comp Olympian

Compference 2016 Become a Comp Olympian

Become a Gold-Medal Compensation Expert: Train at Compference

We’re nearly half way through the Olympics and I’m still glued to the TV set every night. Watching the swimmers and volleyball and gymnasts and all the passionate athletes is beyond inspiring. One thing they all share is the dedication and sheer number of hours that they’ve put into becoming the best...

Massachusetts Fair Pay Law

Massachusetts Fair Pay Law

Massachusetts Takes a Giant Leap Towards Fair Pay

2016 is the year of pay equity. As of August 1, Massachusetts has joined the ranks of California, New York, and Maryland to pass some of the most expansive equal pay laws in the U.S. With so many laws getting passed in the US, what things should you know about this newest...

MOdern Compensation Manifesto Fair Transparent Modern

MOdern Compensation Manifesto Fair Transparent Modern

Fair, Transparent, and Modern: Recapping the #WorkTrends Event

We’re pretty passionate about Modern Compensation at PayScale. We recently did a #WorkTrends event with TalentCulture where we proselytized the value of doing modern comp and having a thoughtful and visionary comp strategy that is fair, transparent, and modern. Tim Low, our SVP of Marketing, went as far as to urge people...

Modern Pay for Performance

Modern Pay for Performance

Modern Pay for Performance

Performance management is definitely undergoing a midlife crisis; it’s time for it to reinvent itself. For the past few HR and compensation conferences I’ve attended, the question has been heavy in the air: what are you doing about your performance process? Most agree that the processes are slow and cumbersome, out of date, ineffective,...

Tim Low discusses modern compensation on WorkTrends Podcast

Tim Low discusses modern compensation on WorkTrends Podcast

Tune In: PayScale Senior Vice President of Marketing Tim Low to Discuss “The Pay Business is the People Business”

Tune in Wednesday, July 20th, for a live podcast event! PayScale Senior Vice President of Marketing Tim Low will be chatting with Meghan M. Biro, CEO of Talent Culture about PayScale’s new thought leadership framework “The Modern Compensation Manifesto: Why The Pay Business is the People Business.” Tim and Meghan will be...

Tim Low discusses modern compensation on WorkTrends Podcast

Tim Low discusses modern compensation on WorkTrends Podcast

Tune In: PayScale Senior Vice President of Marketing Tim Low to Discuss “The Pay Business is the People Business”

Tune in Wednesday, July 20th, for a live podcast event! PayScale Senior Vice President of Marketing Tim Low will be chatting with Meghan M. Biro, CEO of Talent Culture about PayScale’s new thought leadership framework “The Modern Compensation Manifesto: Why The Pay Business is the People Business.” Tim and Meghan will be...

Putting people back in the center

Putting people back in the center

Putting people back in the center of the increase process

HR is in a tricky spot. Professionals in HR are often responsible for both compliance, protecting the organization from legal problems, and organizational culture, creating a place where people want to stay and contribute their best efforts. I get it, having been there myself. The anxiety and cost of a lawsuit are...

Communicating the U.S. FLSA Changes to Employees

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleIf your social media threads look anything like mine, they’re blowing up with information related to the FLSA changes. Most include an overview of the changes and some are more in depth than others. In last week's article, we identified some considerations for making...

Leveling Up: What Skills Matter?

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleIs there really a skills gap? What skills should we develop internally? What skills cost the most? I often get these questions from organizations with whom we work. PayScale recently analyzed our data in an attempt to identify the skills that matter most...

What Do the New FLSA Overtime Rules Mean to You?

The U.S. Department of Labor released the final new rules on Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)* overtime standards this week. While HR professionals have been talking about this behind closed doors for about a year now, there wasn’t much public buzz about it … until now; it’s making a much more public...

Pay Fairly All Year Long

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScale

Equal Pay Day 2016

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleHappy Equal Pay DayIt feels odd wishing someone a happy equal pay day. Happy? Equal Pay Day is the day at which women’s wages on the whole catch up to that of men’s wages from the prior year. It’s calculated using the figures about...

A Magically Delicious Comp Strategy

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleSaint Paddy’s day has many in the mood for parades, green beer, and donning shamrocks. But for me, well, I’m ready for a big ‘ol bowl of Lucky Charms, in honor of their 52nd birthday. I remember fondly the year they added purple horseshoes....

Lessons from Yelp: How Transparent Pay Practices Motivate Employees

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleAlong with thousands of other people, I read Talia Jane’s open letter to her CEO with mixed emotions. Long story short, she wrote an in-depth blog, directed to the CEO of Yelp, describing the many ways that the pay for her entry-level job at...

It Pays to Comply: Compliance Jobs Are Hot

I’ve been thinking a lot about Zenefits lately, especially about things we at PayScale can learn from their recent troubles. Zenefits is an online HR software company, and they focus mainly on small businesses. They make their money by selling insurance to said small businesses, but they were recently exposed for being...

CBPR Top 10: What Comptopians Do Differently

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScalePayScale’s 2016 Compensation Best Practices Report is here! This year, for the first time ever, we compare top performing companies—defined as those who were first in their industry and exceeded revenue projections in 2015—to all respondents, revealing a correlation between modern pay...

The Corporate Chasm: Does Your Employer Think Like You?

It’s pretty neat working at a company like PayScale that has smart, dedicated, and passionate people working both to empower employees with knowledge and to support organizations to be better at engaging their workforce. It means that, fairly often, I see both sides of the formula, if not actually an equation. I...

Header Cupid

Header Cupid

How to Hire Cupid

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleWith Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching, the mayor of Panama City, Florida is still plagued by bad press. Ever since the publication of the Huffington Post article that singled out Panama City, Florida as the #1 city in America where marriages go to die, the...

New Required Reporting Proposed to Close Gender Pay Gap

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleOn Friday, President Obama announced a proposal submitted by the EEOC that would require employers with 100+ employees to report, not just employee demographic data, but also pay data. The objective is for employers to provide data that could then be used to search...

Managing Comp during High Growth Phases

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleWhen organizations get into high growth phase, everything starts moving faster. Recruiting speeds up. Finding people desks to sit in rapidly becomes an unsolvable puzzle.Making sure every incoming person has a set-up complete with computer becomes a greater challenge.All the moving pieces that are...

Managing Comp during High Growth Phases

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Modern Compensation Evangelist, PayScaleWhen organizations get into high growth phase, everything starts moving faster. Recruiting speeds up. Finding people desks to sit in rapidly becomes an unsolvable puzzle.Making sure every incoming person has a set-up complete with computer becomes a greater challenge.All the moving pieces that are...

When is tough love too tough? One Gen-Xer’s view on motivating Millennials

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, PayScaleLet’s face it, Millennials already make up more than half the workforce. That may differ from organization to organization, but most of the companies I work with are actively faced with the challenge of motivating and engaging employees across the generations, when the generations have such different characteristics....

3 Common Types of Pay Compression

This piece was updated in November 2018. In the most basic terms, pay compression refers to a situation where pay isn’t differentiated enough (i.e. “compressed”) where it should be and for a very compelling reason. When pay compression is present, you may find that your employee morale or engagement takes a dip,...

Federal Minimum wage

Federal Minimum wage

Will recent pay increases for minimum wage workers affect those in higher earning brackets?

Co-written by Mykkah Herner, PayScale Comp Specialist and Tess C.Taylor, Founder of HR Knows Around the nation, large corporations are taking the minimum wage issue to heart by instituting salary increases for their most underpaid workers. Companies like McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Target, and TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx and...

Developing a competitive kitty compensation plan

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, PayScale Last year I benchmarked my cat after she had kept me up at night. Recently, something similar happened. She had been pawing at me all night, concerned she wasn’t being compensated appropriately for the challenging tasks of (a) providing companionship, (b) cuddling with me when the weather is...

How does the changing minimum wage affect your compensation strategy?

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, PayScale There has been a lot of talk about increasing the minimum wage, at the federal, state, and city levels. In Seattle, headquarters of PayScale, we just passed an ordinance increasing the minimum wage to $15/hour within 3-7 years depending on employer size. Of course there has...

Rewind: World at Work 2014 Total Rewards Conference

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, PayScaleI recently returned from World at Work’s Total Rewards Conference: Evolve. It’s always helpful to hear what our fellow industry leaders have to say about compensation trends, how they’re handling the challenges of 2014, and what up and coming best/next practices are on the horizon. PayScale’s cohort was...

Top 5 compensation lessons from 2013

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, PayScale Last year was a year of ups, downs, and shutdowns. The Affordable Care Act is still looming over us, the impact unclear. Some but not all companies are pulling free of the recession. Employees have continued moving around more and more since the official end...

Q and A from PayScale webinar series: Compensation Budgeting

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, PayScale PayScale recently hosted a three-part webinar series all about Compensation Budgeting, presented by yours truly. Part one was all about managing pay inequities. Part two taught attendees all about raises, and part three showed how to pull it all together using PayScale Insight. If you missed any of...

Understanding pay schedules

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCPManager of Insight Expert Services at PayScaleAs the economy continues to slowly recover, and organizations are getting more specific about their compensation philosophies, compensation plans are both streamlining and becoming more complex. Increasingly organizations are using pay schedules as a way of maintaining internal equity, while differentiating pay by...

23 answers about compensation analytics and the ROI of turnover

Mykkah Herner, M.A., CCP, PayScale PayScale recently hosted a wildly popular webinar entitled Compensation Analytics: The ROI of Turnover, presented by me, Mykkah Herner. If you missed the webinar, you are welcome to view the slides from the presentation. Since this is a topic of interest to so many of our...

Managing Employee Pay with Ranges

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP; Manager of Consulting Services at PayScale I spend quite a bit of time working with people to develop appropriate structure for their organizations. How many grades should they have? How wide should the ranges be? How can I make sure my ranges are aligned to the market? I’ve...

What I learned at the 2013 Total Rewards Conference

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Senior Compensation Consultant at PayScaleI had the good fortune to attend the World at Work Total Rewards Conference last week. In addition to the great group of exhibitors, there to support compensation and HR professionals, there were also some stellar presentations that got me thinking. Here are the...

Pricing to the Employee vs. Pricing to the Job

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, PayScale As an employee, I’m often concerned with my own value and therefore worth to the organization. As a manager, I was often trying to determine the value of each job to the organization. Now as a comp professional, I focus on a little bit of both: the value of the job...

Offering Guidance to Federal Contractors, Post Recession

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Compensation Consultant PayScale Stephanie R Thomas ends her blog post, “Gone With The Wind (Your Guidance, That Is),” with a challenge: “How will you prepare?” She aptly points out that the rescission of the “Compensation Standards” and “Voluntary Guidelines” by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) leaves federal contractors with less guidance...

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your 2013 Comp Plan

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Compensation Consultant at PayScale It’s the end of the year! I’m wrapping up a bunch of client projects, getting them all set to launch their brand new compensation plans in the New Year. As I’m doing so, I’m realizing how helpful the tried and true New Years’ Resolutions are when thinking about best...

Do I mean percentage or percentile?

Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP Compensation Consultant at PayScale When benchmarking positions, it’s easy to get tongue-tied over the terms percentage and percentile. Percentiles are admittedly confusing. People generally understand that market pay breaks out at the 10th through 90th percentiles, but what does that even mean? And how can I use that information to manage employee pay? When are...

Performance Reviews: From Pain To Gain

Getting Performance Reviews Right Performance Reviews: From Pain to Gain Does anyone love performance reviews? They can cause anxiety for both the employee under review and the reviewer. PayScale compensation consultant Mykkah Herner argues that it doesn't have to be this way. Performance reviews can and should be a means to empower business, not...

It’s More Than Just the Pay

Retention Requires Communication Some stories make you cringe. For those of us who think about human resources every day, this post by Paul Spiegelman may be one of them. In the article, he talks about losing one of his top performers and the lessons he learned from the experience. Like many...

Managing Employee Pay with Pay Ranges

Options For Handling Outliers By Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Compensation Consultant at PayScale You've just finished benchmarking all your jobs. You’ve established some ranges for your positions. Maybe you even have a structure, with grades, to which you’ve assigned each position. You’re ahead of the game, with most of your work is behind you,...

Building a Better Incentive Plan

Blending the World at Work and Brad Hams Approaches By Mykkah Herner, PayScale.com Last month, I read and reviewed Brad Hams’ Ownership Thinking, and promised to write more on his sense of having the right incentives. While I thought he has some useful suggestions, I found his incentive plan to be both too...

The Pros and Cons of “Ownership Thinking”

Ownership Thinking: Can It Help Your Business? There’s been some buzz in business circles about Brad Hams’ Ownership Thinking: How to End Entitlement and Create a Culture of Accountability, Purpose, and Profit. This weekend I sat down to see what the fuss was about, and found some interesting and some not so interesting...

Salary Negotiation Tips for Employers

How to Respond to a Request for a Raise It’s that time of year again: the annual salary budget has been set, performance evaluations are done, and suddenly managers are hiding behind closed doors, anxiously dreading “the talk.” The annual compensation conversation doesn’t need to be a daunting, mysterious process, either for managers...

Listen Up, Mr. Scrooge! PayScale Compensation Plan Advice

What We Would Teach Ebeneezer Scrooge About Compensation “Bah, humbug! Why should I pay my people another dime?” Beware, Managers, don't follow Scrooge’s miserly ways when it comes to compensation. As the classic tale goes, through various ghostly visits, our friend Mr. Scrooge learns to get into the holiday spirit and finally...

What Small Companies Really Need from HR

Large and In Charge: The Strategic Role of HR at Small Companies and Non-Profits With the buzz around talent management, organizational development, and management circles, the role of HR is becoming more sophisticated in larger organizations . But, in smaller companies and non-profits, HR professionals often still fill more traditional roles in areas...

Non-Profit Compensation in a Down Economy

Reality Check: Why Non-Profits Need to Evaluate Their Pay Practices in Today’s Economy The past few years have been tricky for many non-profits. Those that have weathered the recession have done so because they have had great financial advisors or have been really creative. While our private-sector counterparts may be starting to see...