What's It Worth? Don't guess at important stuff like salaries. Go to a reliable source.
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Are you paying your staff too much--or not enough? Do you knowhow to peg the salary to suit a new position? Don't guess,surf, because nowadays the Internet is crammed with rich sitesfilled with salary info. Such as?
- JobStar (http://www.jobsmart.org/tools/salary/sal-prof.htm)offers links to more than 300 salary surveys, covering everythingfrom accounting to the wood and paper industry. For instance, areyou paying your PR staffer enough? A click on "PublicRelations" produces links to surveys that tell you the averagesalaries by region and specialty.
Want to know what you should pay yourself? Click"Executives," and you find links to surveys of executivecompensation in everything from high-tech start-ups to casinos.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/compub.htm)offers data that covers most occupations and is organizedregionally. That's important because a typist in San Franciscomakes a very different wage from one in Texarkana.
Useful related info: At http://www.bls.gov/ebshome.htm,you can find out what benefits are most common in which businesses.Although the information hasn't been updated in a while--thesurvey dates from 1996--benefits information probably hasn'tchanged that much and baselines are useful when negotiating withnew hires.
To contact Robert McGarvey, e-mail him at rjm@mcgarvey.net.
