Survey Job Matching

Market Matching or Survey Job Matching is the process of matching your organisation’s positions to the generic position descriptions published by your market data provider.

Involve Key Stakeholders

  • We recommend that managers responsible for pay decisions within their team be involved in the market matching process. Their involvement is likely to increase their buy-in and acceptance of the results
  • You may also be able to involve relevant HR business partners who have good understanding of your organisations roles to help with the matching process
  • Ensure objectivity – do not involve the role incumbent in the matching process for their own role!

Focus on Job Content

It is important that you ensure those involved in the process are focusing on the content of the position description and being swayed by an expected or desired salary range/outcome

  • Firstly, look beyond job titles – organisations use titles quite differently
  • Look for at least a 70-80% match between your job description and the survey job
  • Focus on the job and not the incumbent – you can consider appropriate reward for performance later on

Don’t Force A Match

It is not possible to obtain an exact match for every position.  All market data should be interpreted with this in mind.   Here’s what you can do in cases where an appropriate match to the market cannot be made rather than make a match that is not quite right:

  • Review the remuneration for the similarly skilled and same level of performance employees
  • Review data across different seniority levels to find a “best fit” somewhere between the two

Where you are unable to find a survey with the data you require you could consider engaging an external organisation to run a customised survey covering your specific roles and targeting your desired peer group of organisations for participation.