RTKL

This architectural firm needed a better way to help employees understand all the nuance that goes into setting compensation to ensure everyone was using the same data.

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This architectural firm needed a better way to help employees understand all the nuance that goes into setting compensation to ensure everyone was using the same data.

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Employees
1100
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Industry
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Product
Insight
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Region
Global
Why PayScale?

RTKL needed a new compensation strategy that would allow the organization to have fact-based conversations around pay with employees—and enable Whipp to design and execute a true compensation strategy without being an expert in compensation. The typical salary survey wasn’t an option. "We wanted something that was more than ‘in the Northeast region of the United States, this position pays this much,’" said Whipp. "You could as easily find another survey that shows something different."

The organization also wanted to be able to back up its salary decisions based on multiple factors, not just job title. "Surveys don’t let you build jobs around other compensable factors, like security clearance, software skills and needs, and education," said Whipp. RTKL discovered PayScale through an unusual channel: their competition. "Some of our competitors were using PayScale, so we thought we’d see what it could do for us," said Whipp.

Pain Points
Difficult Compensation Conversations with Employees
Pay Equity Compliance
Keeping Pay Objective
The Results
Leveraged fresh data and software to facilitate the compensation conversation.

With PayScale, Whipp and her team can defend their compensation decisions against Internet queries from employees "Whenever an employee comes over and says ‘I’m underpaid,’ I can share their PayScale employee report. It has their name on it and is customized to their degree, their skills, etc.," said Whipp. "PayScale helps us add credibility to how and why we pay, as opposed to just using a generic salary survey from the marketplace. It’s not enough to show salary ranges. We need customized reports that endorse our compensation philosophy and support the conversation."

Ensured objectivity in compensation decisions, especially around Affirmative Action regulations.

With PayScale, RTKL can ensure true pay equity. "As an Affirmative Action employer, PayScale allows me to have more confidence in our comp structure. PayScale is totally blind to gender and race. We can set up jobs from an objective viewpoint, and then add candidates’ skillsets, experience, and degrees," said Whipp. "PayScale creates an objective analysis, and we can support why we made our hiring and compensation decisions. We have successfully used PayScale as one of our compensation tools to ensure we’re creating a fair and equitable environment. PayScale has stood the test in these audits and provided us with the confidence and objectivity we needed to support our approach and philosophy."

Explore potential what-if scenarios to the market during continued growth.

Since PayScale offers detailed position and salary data for more than 15,000 titles, in labor markets down to the zip code, Whipp can use it to gain a competitive edge during recruiting. "We can market our job positions against the marketplace across the United States and Canada," said Whipp. "I also use PayScale to explore how new positions would land within our structure."