If you have a large employee base and you are trying to remain competitive from a compensation perspective, this tool is well suited to help you accomplish this goal. If you are not a comp expert, they have experts on hand that can help you through projects or just answer basic questions.
If you have someone in your organization well-versed in compensation and compensation analysis, PS MP is a great fit and they will be able to onboard and leverage it very quickly. Moreover, if you have roles within your organization that are fairly standard and akin to similar roles in other organizations, you will get a lot out of the majority of matches that PS MP suggests. However, if you've made your roles a little bit more nuanced or "outside of the box" you may have difficulty finding a sufficient match and have to make concessions. If you are in a region where PS MP might not provide enough data, you may need to do a bit of extra leg-work and analysis on your own to settle on where your pay ranges and the like should be. Given the cost of PS MP, it's worth considering based on your workforce and your commitment to compensation analysis and the conversations around it whether it's truly going to provide adequate ROI.
Their customer service is fantastic. I absolutely adore my Relationship Success Manager, I still have a great relationship with the Account Executive that brought us on board.
The tool has some hiccups but overall, of the three tools I demo'ed, it is the most user friendly. PayScale is transparent about the issues they are experiencing and what is on the horizon for improvements of the tool. We all expect some things to go a little wrong or not be the as user friendly as WE THINK it should be, and I appreciate that PayScale acknowledges that and is transparent about what's in the works for improvements along the way.
I like the ability to customize pay structures, create favorites, and create new jobs on the fly. I've really enjoyed working in the tool and I'm excited to get our data cleaned up so that we can use all PayScale reporting and dashboards have to offer.
Detailed view of the market rates for roles within the organization provides the ability to pay our employees at our chosen rate with confidence.
Updated data to ensure that we are keeping pace--you're not stuck with outdated data that some annual salary surveys provide.
The market available for analysis are robust, and we're not simply looking at a single city, region, or country. You can usually get as grand or as granular as you like in reviewing available data.
Job titles can prove to be a challenge as they sometimes do not connect as well as you'd hope. This may require some extra work on our part to fit our needs into what Payscale provides. Generally, this is a small concern, but it is still something that should be updated to keep with some of the changes in titles/roles.
It would be great if Payscale offered an online tool/area for watching recorded webinars or training sessions rather than having to do it live. As others have mentioned, with a busy schedule, it is sometimes challenging to find the time to watch live. Having a database would help ensure that the training can be accessed at any time.
Options to perhaps break down some of the data in reports to provide to others who are less versed in the contents of the report and the overall system. I'd prefer to have to explain less of what is presented and let the data speak for itself where possible.
There is a bit of a learning curve--if you're looking to get others involved who are not fluent in compensation data and analysis, it can be complicated and involved. It could benefit from additional tips and walkthroughs for newer users outside of the support that PayScale provides through your designated PS employee/account manager.
Being a Canadian company, the data isn't always as robust as it is for American companies. Larger cities are almost always represented and while you can often get data for the smaller areas, the data is not sufficient enough to always provide the best confidence (e.g. 5.0 reports vs. lower rated ones).
It does not work for every job, and you may find that you need to stretch definitions a bit as you may have roles that don't fix the exact mold that they are closest to in PayScale. This is especially true in insurance, where the role of underwriter or claims adjuster may differ significantly based on the organization's business.
Never had any issues with customer support as they are very responsive. The system is very reliable, therefore, we rarely interact with their customer support.
Support is great as PayScale provides you with a dedicated staff member similar to Account Manager that helps ensure you stay on track and you get what you need out of the product. Additionally, onboarding support is provided where needed, and you never feel as though you're not close to the support you need. PayScale support is great!
Both PayScale and Paycom were pretty comparable, but I liked the detail and sophistication of PayScale a little more. Because PayScale has a place to enter in info on both the job and the market, we went with this software. The other factor I took into consideration was that I was already using PayScale and didn't have to enter the entire company's data
We haven't used any similar products, as the organization previously relied on salary surveys completed within a group of similar companies and market surveys. The downside of such surveys was the limited or not relevant datasets and the timing of them as they did not keep pace with the market and were always essentially 6-12 months behind the curve.
PayScale has allowed us to better target our compensation strategy, which has reigned in managers who were increasing pay MUCH quicker than necessary.
The changes we've made over the past couple of years have allowed us to pinpoint areas of need. For example, we adjusted our starting pay for our primary job class and reduced turnover from over 60% to under 30% in 18 months. Reduced turnover is a clear positive impact on ROI.
Positive: Ability to better understand where our pay is relative to the market and ensure that we are paying competitively and attracting the best possible talent.
Positive: We can have more informed compensation conversations with staff about their pay and why we pay the way we do. We can define our compensation philosophy and build a plan to move forward and ensure we keep staff informed.
Neutral Impact: While PS MP can be robust for certain jobs, using it as a unified platform within the organization is not without its challenges as some jobs just don't quite fit the data provided and we need to make some concessions. While there are benefits to the data, the additional work and less confidence makes those benefits a bit of a wash in the end.
Negative: There has been no negative impact of using PS MP overall to this point.
