Employers: Do you buy talent (hire externally) or build talent (develop from within)? It is not just a budget question. It is a strategy decision.

Both talent paths come with trade-offs and big implications for your compensation strategy.

Buying Talent - Pros:

·        You get immediate expertise and a fresh perspective. You can also plug urgent skill gaps with this approach.

Job architecture is a structured framework that defines how roles are organized within an organization, including job levels, families, and career paths. It provides clarity on job responsibilities, titles, progression, and compensation. It supports consistency, equity, and alignment with business goals. By standardizing roles and expectations, it enables more effective talent management and strategic workforce planning.

Job architecture provides:

#1 - Organizational Clarity & Alignment

It’s not just about crunching numbers or pulling survey data. It’s deeper than that and more nuanced. The best compensation professionals I've worked with over the years share a rare blend of traits that you don’t often find in a single person.

They’re researchers and part private detectives. They are relentless in pursuit of truth. They know how to dig. They don’t stop at surface-level pay data; they triangulate between salary surveys, internal equity, economic and labor market trends, as well as pay transparency expectations.

Employers: How do you respond when a candidate asks for more than you’re willing to pay?

There are a few ways to approach this as an employer or hiring manager.

One option: move on. The candidate priced themselves out of the role, and you find someone else whose expectations are more in line with your offer.

Another approach: be transparent.

Employee Question: “Why don’t we get paid like engineers at Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, or Microsoft?”

If you’re an HR  Leader at a startup or mid-sized tech company, chances are you’ve heard this question and felt the tension behind it.

It’s a fair question, especially in an era of pay transparency and readily available comp data. But it’s also an incomplete comparison.

Here’s how to respond thoughtfully and transparently:

Step 1 - Start with Education, Not Defensiveness

Talking about pay can be awkward, emotional, and stressful for both employees and managers. These discussions often involve fairness, competitiveness, contributions, and financial security, which can trigger frustration, anxiety, or even excitement.

The more you prepare, the better the conversation will be.

How do you manage emotions in pay conversations? Whether you're asking for a raise or responding to a request, emotions can run high. Here’s how to stay in control:

While incentive plans might seem like a natural fit for fundraising roles, there are several reasons why they can be problematic. Here are the top five reasons why putting fundraisers on an incentive plan is generally not advisable:

1. Misalignment with Donor Ethics and Expectations

• Many donors expect their contributions to support the mission, not individual compensation.

A well-designed sales compensation plan isn’t just about paying reps. It’s about aligning incentives with business goals, driving performance, and ensuring scalability. Too often, companies design plans in a silo, leading to unintended behaviors, missed revenue targets, or poor rep retention.

So, how do you get it right? And who should be at the table?

1. Align Compensation with Strategy

Before structuring payouts, define your go-to-market (GTM) strategy:

In today’s job market, retaining top talent and boosting engagement is critical. One underutilized tool? Spot bonuses are discretionary, immediate rewards for outstanding contributions.

What Are Spot Bonuses?

Unlike annual bonuses, spot bonuses are one-time, unplanned monetary awards given in real-time for exceptional performance, teamwork, innovation, or embodying company values.

Retention bonuses are a powerful tool, but only when used strategically. If you’re throwing money at employees hoping they’ll stay, you’re missing the mark. A well-designed retention bonus should align with business needs, be competitive, and have clear terms.

When Should You Offer a Retention Bonus?

Here are three common scenarios where a retention bonus makes sense:

Many countries have enacted laws to regulate pay, ensure fair wages, and promote pay equity. Here are 10 of the most significant pay-related laws outside of the U.S.:

1. Equal Pay Act (UK)

• Requires employers to provide equal pay for equal work between men and women. Enforced through the Equality Act 2010.

2. European Union Pay Transparency Directive (EU)

Here are the top 10 U.S. laws related to pay that govern wages, salaries, pay equity, and compensation practices:

1. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (1938)

• Establishes a federal minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor protections.

• Defines exempt vs. non-exempt employee classifications.

2. Equal Pay Act (EPA) (1963)

Paying employees competitively is harder than ever. Employers know fair pay is key to attracting and retaining talent, yet they face a complex balancing act between budgets, market shifts, legal compliance, and employee expectations. Here’s why competitive pay is such a challenge:

·        The Market Moves Fast – Salary benchmarks shift constantly due to inflation, industry trends, and talent shortages. Employees now have easy access to pay data, raising expectations.

·        Budget Constraints vs. Competitive Pay – Companies must balance compensation costs with profitability. Pay compression, where new hires earn more than existing employees—creates internal equity concerns.

In my 30+ years as a Compensation Consultant, I’ve seen companies spend countless hours debating, designing, and maintaining the structure of smart job codes. Smart job codes are a sequence of numbers and alpha characters that embed logic like job family, pay grade, and career level. On paper, it sounds efficient. In practice? Not so much.

Here’s why I don’t recommend using logic-driven job codes:

1 - Rigidity Limits Flexibility – What happens when a job moves to a different grade or career level? You either break the logic or force a new job code—creating unnecessary admin work.

Here are 11 types of compensation data sources commonly used for benchmarking and pay decisions:

1. Third-Party Salary Surveys – Published reports from firms like Mercer, Willis Towers Watson (WTW), Korn Ferry, Culpepper, Pearl Meyer, and AON Radford provide market pay data by industry, geography, employer size, and job level.

2. Multiple Survey Aggregators - Salary.com purchases the most current salary surveys available from well-recognized, reputable compensation consulting firms. Then they aggregate it into a large database.

3. Government Data – Sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Canada’s Job Bank and Statistics Canada provide free, broad-based salary data.

I recently had someone ask me what is replacing DEI in job titles. 

A lot of employers are trying to figure this out. But if you are shifting your focus from DEI, it is more than a job title shift. It is much more than an acronym change.

It is about creating a work environment that supports high performance from all members of the team.

Let’s assume the goal is to create an environment where everyone feels welcomed, respected, and has equal opportunity to participate and succeed, regardless of their background, identity, or characteristics.

In today’s business landscape, companies recognize that people are their greatest asset. However, too many boards still lack the expertise to effectively oversee human capital and the associated talent strategy. Traditionally, board seats have been dominated by those with finance, legal, or operations backgrounds. However, as workforce challenges become more complex, the need for human capital experts in the boardroom has never been greater.

What does this mean? Boards must go beyond traditional oversight and ensure that they:

·        Align talent strategy with business goals

Employers: Do you round the minimum, midpoint, and maximum numbers of your base salary ranges?

I asked this question via a LinkedIn poll yesterday. The top answer at 47% with 280 votes is: “Yes, to the nearest $100.”  The poll will stay open for a week, but I assume this won’t change much by the time the poll closes.

I have had discussions about rounding often.  Some employers like the round annual numbers because it makes it easier to communicate. 

When you communicate a merit increase to an employee, they will typically listen to the percentage increase. Then they will compare that to the merit budget percentage. That tells them whether they are better than “average” or not. It doesn’t matter what performance rating you gave them. 

Example 1: “The merit budget was 3%, but my manager gave me a 2.8% increase.  I must not be meeting expectations like I was rated.  This doesn’t feel good. I should have had a 3% increase or more if I was meeting expectations.”

When employees ask about pay, their manager is often their first stop. But too many managers feel unprepared to have these conversations—leading to frustration, avoidance, and even turnover. The solution? Equip managers with the right tools, resources, and training to have clear, confident, and productive discussions about compensation with employees.

The best way to train managers to talk about pay is through a structured, practical approach. Start with role-playing exercises that simulate real pay discussions. These help managers build confidence, practice delivering clear and consistent messages, and get comfortable navigating difficult conversations.

Next, provide FAQs with clear answers to common pay-related questions. Managers should be ready to address concerns like: