Centauri Health Solutions is a private equity backed company that provides innovative technology and services to payors and providers in government sponsored health programs. The company saw significant expansion in 2017, increasing in size from 120 to 600 employees due to multiple acquisitions. This is also when the utilization of Payscale’s compensation software, data and services began. Today, the company has eight main regional locations and over 1,700 employees working across the United States. With a rapid growth trajectory, it was imperative to leadership that a compensation strategy and formalized program be developed that could align with the speed of their business.

Initially, while salary data was being utilized in job offers, there was no structure or policy behind job pricing. The people department was also anticipating the excitement of future mergers, acquisitions and the implementation of a new HCM system. Acknowledging all of this, the CHRO was compelled to sit down and develop a plan for how to leverage the Payscale partnership and his team’s collective experiences to drive Centauri’s bold business initiatives.

Payscale provides the technology, adaptive salary data, and professional services that have supported the development and management of Centauri’s modernized compensation program. What started as basic benchmarking and annual pay reviews has transformed into a robust compensation strategy with a performance-based pay philosophy – all accomplished in a three-year timespan.

Centauri has leveraged Payscale’s expertise every step of the way. Partnering with a compensation professional on the services team to build a pay structure, seeking recommendations on pricing difficult jobs, attending educational webinars, or keeping up to date on market trends are just examples of how the partnership has influenced business decisions over the years.

A key component of success was starting with a solid foundation internally. Essential steps included:

• Standardizing job descriptions and gathering accurate details from managers
• Internal alignment to ensure the right people were in the right roles
• Gaining buy-in from leadership on the importance of using data informed by market strategies

Having a developed compensation program increased the team’s efficiency and allowed them to stay focused amid other initiatives taking place. New jobs could quickly be benchmarked and slotted into the structure and acquired markets could be assessed and analyzed. Program maturity also enabled the creation of a variable merit matrix system so that employees could be rewarded according to performance. Lastly, an internal leadership training was produced in collaboration with Payscale to boost employee confidence in their salary during pay conversations with managers to ensure a positive experience with the company.

Ultimately, the partnership with Payscale has helped balance recruiting and retention efforts with budgeting and rapid growth. For example, in some cases, the organization’s compensation strategy and structure has resulted in avoiding tens of thousands of dollars in under- or over-payment for a single role. This financial benefit has aided the ability to offer competitive total rewards packages to motivate company performance targets. Such a dialed-in approach would not have been possible without having trust in the Employee Reported data and guidance backed by Payscale.

Centauri is now well-positioned to navigate the ever-changing world of compensation and take the next step forward on their journey. This will require investing in advanced analytics, adding more salary data to the mix, and keeping the spotlight on internal equity, diversity and inclusion. The mission is to continuously evolve the impact of the compensation program on powering the business’ overall goal of simplifying access to healthcare systems.