Know What To Pay Your Employees

Recruiting and retaining the right employees is essential for most organizations. Rely on CEA’s professional compensation team for the right answers at a reasonable fee. CEA will work with you in a way that best fits your specific needs and budget.

Seven Best Practices For Developing A Pay Program

1. Define a total compensation strategy that is linked to your mission and goals
2. Use multiple market surveys to pin point competitive pay levels for your jobs
3. Age the market survey pay data to current or future dates that you identify
4. Establish and maintain a current pay grade and range structures
5. Identify equitable internal job level/grade relationships
6. Perform assessments of your pay practices versus your competitive market
7. Introduce administrative practices that are aligned with your pay strategy

Why Use CEA for Compensation Services?

• To align your pay practices with the organization’s mission and goals
• To be sure you are not paying too little, too much, or inequitably
• To enable you to recruit, engage, reward, and retain the right people
• To be sure you are paying your employees competitive rates
• To better equip your managers and supervisors to administer pay
• To streamline your pay program and make it more effective
• To link pay to employee and organization performance results
• To improve employee and organization performance results

See a Sample Salary Comparison

See a Variety of Compensation Services

• Compensation Strategy: Facilitate discussions within your organization to determine the appropriate compensation strategy that aligns with your mission and goals. Includes recommendations to better align actual compensation practices with strategy.
• Market Pricing of Individual Jobs: Our staff will review data from multiple market survey data sources to recommend pay levels for specific company jobs, including organization versus competitive market comparisons.
• Pay Structure Design & Assessments: We'll compile market data for a group of "benchmark” jobs (e.g., 10 to 25) to develop a market-based pay structure (including grades and ranges).  Using market pay structure data, we will perform an overall assessment of your organization's pay practices versus the competitive market.
• Market Pay Structure Maintenance: Annual updates/aging of organization pay structures and re-assess pay levels for applicable jobs/employees versus updated market norms.
• Total Compensation Assessments: In conjunction with wage/salary structure development and assessments, we'll provide comparison of organization incentive/bonus practices, benefit plans and total compensation practices versus market practices and recommend reallocation of compensation dollars as appropriate.
• Employee Benefits Analysis: Comparisons of organization employee benefit plans and practices versus competitive market norms. Identify gaps versus market norms and provide recommendations for correcting shortfalls when appropriate.
• Implementation Strategies and Recommendations: Review of individual employee pay in relation to the organization’s competitive pay objectives and  recommend adjustments and ongoing pay administration.
• Pay Plan Communications: Development of employee communication documents to ensure understanding of plan design considerations and plan administrative requirements.
• Incentive/Bonus Plan Design: Design, develop and implement performance-based incentive/bonus pay plans that fit the competitive business environment and align with the organization’s specific performance expectations.
• Pay Policy and Performance Guidelines and Forms: Draft new and improved policy, procedures, guidelines, and forms to support alignment with organization pay strategy.
• Executive Compensation Plans: Design, develop and implement performance-based executive compensation plans that are aligned with the organization’s performance expectations and competitive talent markets.

Download the Equal Pay Act Guide for California here