PayScale Data Collection, Filtering, and Methodology
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For you to trust our compensation data, you need to know where it comes from. That's why we make our collection and filtering methodology completely transparent. Our process is so thorough, we've got nothing to hide.
We collect and report all our own salary data. Our compensation data comes from comprehensive salary surveys that span a wide range of industries and geographic locations. Information is voluntarily self-reported by employees and employers.
Then, we don't fuss with it. We do not blend salary data from multiple data sources or salary surveys, which may lead to averaging errors. We do not artificially age our salary data. All data must be less than 365-days old (and is often less than 90-days old). We do not apply cost-of-living adjustments to our salary data in order to estimate local market rates.
Finally, we validate every salary data point with both technology and trained data experts. We only report salary data that has been validated by our survey system and compensation data team and falls within our age requirements.
If you have any questions about our process, please feel free to call us, toll free, at 888.699.0702. Or just keep reading for more details!
Salary Data Collection
PayScale collects salary data from both employees (incumbents) and employers. Through our online salary survey, we administer a comprehensive salary survey to individuals that collects a wide range of pay and job profile information. In return for this information, individuals receive a fair market valuation report that compares them to other people just like them. There are no offers, payments or other incentives made to individuals to encourage them to fill out a personal profile.
Employee-submitted pay information has proven to be the most meaningful salary data for talent-based compensation because it yields more insightful data than employer-only surveys can.
We've found that by asking employees questions that they know the answers to, we can capture information that organizations don't track in their talent management systems. Questions like education level, unique skills and certifications, total years in field, as well as job responsibility. These questions uncover the factors that directly impact employee pay, enabling HR professionals like you to determine what employees should be paid based not only on their level, but on their individual skill sets.
PayScale also collects data from employer surveys administered on behalf of professional associations. In addition to providing this data through the respective associations, PayScale benchmarks our incumbent-submitted data against employer-submitted data.
Salary Data Integrity
PayScale utilizes a sophisticated data validation system to ensure that survey records included in your datasets are accurate and reliable.
Every submitted profile has to pass through our patent-pending algorithm of 20 stringent rules that verify data accuracy, authenticity, and validity. If a profile doesn't pass all 20 rules, it's flagged for independent review by an in-house PayScale compensation analyst. Flagged data is compared against PayScale's employer-submitted data. Any data profiles deemed questionable, incomplete, or duplicate are not used in calculating compensation reports.
For example:
- We only accept data that is submitted by individuals that have a current job or job offer.
- All salary data ranges must fall within expected norms set forth by our compensation analysis team.
- Duplicate entries are eliminated.
- There must be agreement between salary range and years of experience.
- The geographic location has to be in the database.
- The survey must be completely filled out.
- The specific education degree must be listed in the database.
- Profiles submitted with rounded salary figures are flagged.
Our research and analysis has shown that PayScale Compensation Reports are not only within industry accepted ranges, but are more accurate than competitive offerings because the reported data is precisely matched to the type and size of organization as well as the skills and experience of the employee.
Salary Data Analysis
Our salary survey-based compensation methodology maintains every individual profile in its entirety, preserving the details that make each employee unique.
Unlike some of our competitors, PayScale does not modify or blend profile data, use inflation or cost-of-living adjustments, or age data. We don't estimate salaries from one region to another, because this approach may not accurately reflect salaries and trends in a specific geographic location.
We use the most current data points available and we report the average age of data points reported. This way we avoid erroneous assumptions often made by other data providers commonly known as "averages of averages" and "surveys of surveys."
When conducting a search for compensation data about one or more positions, PayScale users will define many criteria that describe their organization and their requirements for that position. Organizational criteria includes:
- Industry
- Location
- Type of organization (e.g. profit vs. non-profit)
- Company size
A unique aspect of PayScale's system is the ability to offer the most relevant results possible, by specifying criteria differently between industries. For instance, newspaper publishers can define "size" by number of employees and by circulation volume. An airline pilot can define their "level of experience" as measured by number of hours flown on a specific type of airplane.
Once criteria are defined, PayScale searches our entire database to find the most current profiles that match the defined search.
Data Reporting
Many salary data providers use only job titles when comparing compensation levels, which leads to broad, arbitrary data sets. And that just isn't sufficient research for making business-critical decisions about your company's compensation.
PayScale has established up to 100 comparable data points for each report. The matches are precise and exceed traditional sample sizes for comparisons of this nature.
Additionally, outliers below the 10th or above the 90th percentiles are not reported if there are fewer than 10 exact match comparable profiles in the system. PayScale will not calculate or report data if the number of data points is insufficient to provide a meaningful representation of the market.
Each PayScale Compensation Report includes:
Scoping variables
PayScale Compensation Reports include job title, location, industry, company size, organization type, as well as other scoping variables specific to the position.
Base salary and other cash compensation
Your report also includes the simple average, the median, and percentile data for salary, as well as bonuses, commissions, and other forms of cash compensation.
Benefits
You'll receive a detailed breakdown of specific benefits ranging from paid vacation and 401(k) plans, to other work-life benefits such as flexible hours and cell phone reimbursement.
Key job skills
All PayScale Compensation Reports include the most common skills, degrees, and certifications individuals have obtained, when relevant to a specific position.
Compensation influencers
This section of your report shows how average salaries correlate with a specific skill or trait. For example, reports are available to show how an MBA is correlated with average salary, how size of budget managed correlates with salary, or how a Microsoft Developer certification correlates with salary, and more.
Anonymous individual and company profiles
Each report includes the non-identifiable individual and company profiles of the top matches included in your report. This gives you a more detailed view of the source data utilized for your report.
Number, age, and source of data points
PayScale Compensation Reports also include the number of data points used to build your report, and disclose the average age of these data points. You can also review an aggregate breakdown of the attributes represented by the organizations included in the reported data (e.g. organization size and location).
If you have additional questions about PayScale's salary data, compensation methodology, compensation reports or systems, please feel free to call one of our Account Managers at 888.699.0702.
Privacy Notice: PayScale takes your privacy seriously and is sensitive to the nature of information collected on this site.