Compensation / Pay Practice Strategies

Between the DOL, Wage and Hour regulations and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, you have many risks for pay-related lawsuits and claims.  The saying knowledge can be a powerful tool is so fitting when dealing with pay issues.  It is important to be aware of the risks associated with pay inequities so that you have the opportunity to rectify or explain them, thereby reducing your risk of costly lawsuits.

Let our Certified Compensation professionals help you:

1. Assess your compensation program to ensure properly-written policies and current practices.
2. Articulate a compensation strategy relative to your organization’s philosophy and culture. 
3. Identify benchmark positions, conduct analyses using current market data, and provide you with valuable summary tools to assist in your compensation planning.
4. Create and/or update your base and/or incentive compensation program (to help attract, motivate, reward, and retain an engaged workforce.
5. Evaluate pay practices to determine what market adjustments are needed to be competitive.
6. Develop an implementation plan for market adjustments, if warranted.
7. Prepare communications and training tools to rollout compensation programs.

Employees will perceive compensation as fair if it is based on supporting components that are based on objective criteria/information.  These components include: position descriptions , job analysis and evaluation, salary surveys, pay structures, written compensation procedures, and performance management programs.

With the enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, you will want to be proactive with regard to your pay practices. You can minimize the risks of liability by doing the following in advance of a claim.  We will be glad to help you with any of these steps.

• Review your overall compensation program approach and methodology to improve compliance with legal requirements and move toward best practice.
• Audit your compensation program policy and procedures to ensure that they support the use of objective information and data as the basis for compensation decisions.
• Develop objective, measurable guidelines for compensation decisions to ensure consistency and uniformity with job classification, department, location, contract, or business unit.
• Prepare guidelines for managers to use in making compensation decisions to improve their capability to make objective, consistent decisions about pay.   Require managers to provide a written explanation of why specific ratings are given.
• Conduct management training to ensure your established process is being followed and develop internal audit procedures to verify compliance.
• Revise document retention practices to ensure that documentation on pay decisions is retained for longer periods of time.  You may want to consider electronic archiving of the voluminous nature of pay-related records.
• Conduct analyses of compensation data to identify pay discrepancies that exist across gender, race, and ethnic lines.  If identified, make appropriate adjustments to eliminate unsubstantiated disparities.