Three Things You Can Learn from a Salary Survey

Scrambling for compensation data every time you hire a new employee? The sooner you invest time in completing the KAIA/IntellAgent Salary Survey the sooner you can help create strategies truly needed to drive your growth.

KAIA partnered with IntellAgent to provide members - who complete this salary survey - with a free compensation report based on Kansas agencies.  Here's are three reasons how your agency can use the information:

1.       Data Health

While there's a growing volume of free compensation data out there on the internet, hopping from website to website to cobble together pay packages isn't a recipe for long-term success. It's a time-consuming process and the use of inconsistent and fragmented data sources can create real risks for your business, including weak internal pay equity and a propensity to burn through cash and equity resources faster than expected. Using a strong, industry-focused compensation survey as the foundation for your pay decisions will allow you to make fairer decisions and manage resources more wisely. You'll also save lots of time by having all the data you need on one consistent platform that can increase efficiencies and improve your agency's outlook.

2.       Operational Efficiencies

Operational efficiency refers to the ratio between business inputs and outputs. While there are various ways to look at this, a great place to start is compensation and productivity.

Compensation and productivity should be reasonably congruent when you review a compensation report; otherwise, someone is potentially getting a raw deal. If salaries far eclipse productivity, your agency is probably paying too much and you may not be running financially sustainable programs. On the flip side, if productivity is outpacing compensation, your team might be working too hard and they could be looking for better gigs elsewhere.

How closely should compensation and productivity match? What is the insurance industry's benchmark?  All those can be discovered in the compensation report, thanks to those who participated in the salary survey.

3.       Talent Acquisition

Over the past three decades, productivity levels quickly climbed while wages remained relatively flat, according to research released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Yet that increased productivity hasn't translated into higher wages for some workers, particularly those who are highly skilled, such as IT specialists or construction sales managers, the research report stated.

"What's important here is that while productivity has grown at a resilient clip, the same cannot be said for wages," the researchers wrote. "Real compensation has remained flat over the past three decades …. Workers are simply not getting paid as much relative to what they are producing per hour."

Employers hoping to attract and retain talented workers should consider offering above-market wages to address flat pay, especially in industries where highly skilled workers' wages have remained relatively stagnant.

"Paying wages that are above the market rate can be an important motivating force for your existing employee base to remain in your organization," the report stated. "While many firms might balk at the thought, now, more than ever, they must reconsider their priorities."

The compensation comparative analysis included in the results of our IntellAgent Salary Survey will arm your agency with a detailed understanding of the salary and benefits needed to attract new and different talent not just to the industry, but to your agency.