Salary Consultant Key Terms

Optimize salary negotiations when you focus on salary consultant key terms

By Michele Vrouvas

Some HR professionals will tell you that effective employee management begins at the time you and a prospective new hire agree on a starting salary. Further down the line, long-term employees approaching retirement may be looking for a way to ease out of their positions while at the same time performing necessary functions and receiving full or partial pay. Regardless of the situation, salary consultants offer companies a diverse range of services related to starting salaries, retirement plans and effective pay policies. Here's an overview of key terms that provide insight on how salary consultants can benefit your business.

Percentiles

Salary consultants depend on percentiles to help them find a predetermined point on a scale that ranges from very low to very high numbers. The percentile point must be calculated using circumstance-specific variables.
Try: Read "How are percentiles defined?" at Abbott, Langer Association Surveys. Learn methods for computing percentiles, what kinds of percentiles salary consultants depend on and how these calculations are used to compute percentile salary amounts.

Long-term incentive plans

Long-term incentive plans are systems designed to reward employees for their continued performance and support of the company. It is more common for salary consultants to compute long- term incentive plans for senior level management and executives.
Try: Compensation Resources tells you how to develop a long-term incentive plan based on stock or cash. It also explains the purpose behind these plans.

Phased retirements

When companies create phased retirement plans, they allow certain employees to scale back on hours, with or without adjustments to their pay.
Try: At Deloitte, you'll learn the pros and cons of using phased retirement plans. Find out whether these plans will offer solutions for your company and whether to adopt a broad policy or design the plans on an individual basis.

Wage surveys

Companies perform wage surveys to gather compensation data related to benefits plans and new-hire salaries, as well as for other reasons.
Try: Access the wage surveys page at Palmer and Associates for a complete list of the data on which wage surveys are based. You'll also learn why many companies depend on wage surveys to rank their positions in a given industry.

Retirement risk solutions

When companies consider retirement risk solutions, they are grappling with the existing market economy and how much of a financial burden the retirement plans they offer to their employees will be.
Try: At Towers Perrin, you'll learn how major companies use risk expertise skills to analyze pension plans. Read how salary consultants manage retirement risks and finalize business transactions that are based on a company's current financial performance.

Salary negotiation techniques

Salary consultants depend on well-defined salary negotiation techniques to arrive at compensation that fits an employee's skills while at the same time measures the value of his or her experience.
Try: Read a description of salary negotiation techniques at Gibson Consultants and find out about a suggested approach to making a salary offer. Find out how bottom-line figures and acceptance conditions come into play when bargaining over compensation.