Analyzing Salary Surveys

What to Consider

A large number of compensation surveys are available. Hundreds of compensation surveys are conducted every year in the United States alone. In addition, the Internet has spawned thousands of one-time surveys.

So where do you begin?

Federal Trade Commission Survey Safe Harbor Guidelines

The Federal Trade Commission Survey Safe Harbor Guidelines must be considered whether you are purchasing or conducting a survey.

Several industry groups in healthcare, banking, and petrochemicals were accused of price fixing salaries because of their salary survey practices. As a result of lawsuits, both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission established the FTC Survey Safe Harbor Guidelines to ensure that the free market for labor is not impeded through survey design and administration.

Under the guidelines, look for salary surveys that:

• Are conducted and managed by a neutral, third party, for example, a consulting firm, trade association, or survey provider
• Use participant data that is more than 3 months old.
• Have at least five survey participants for each data point with no individual data source representing more than 25% of a statistic.
• Sufficiently aggregate information so participants’ specific salary information remains confidential.