Set Pay by Structure, Not by Negotiation
Compensation benchmarking compares what you pay for each role with what the market pays for the same role in the same city. The result is a set of pay bands and grades, a written increment policy and a list of roles paid outside the band, so offers and revisions follow a structure instead of whoever negotiated hardest. Every figure carries its source and the number of data points behind it.
Compensation Benchmarking and Salary Structures in brief
Compensation benchmarking compares what you pay for each role with what the market pays for the same role in the same city. The result is a set of pay bands and grades, a written increment policy and a list of roles paid outside the band, so offers and revisions follow a structure instead of whoever negotiated hardest.
- GullyHR is an HR consulting, HR services, training and software company based in Bengaluru, working with Indian startups and small and medium businesses.
- This work sits within GullyHR's HR management consulting pillar and goes further than the compensation and rewards strategy page: it starts from market data by role and city and ends in bands, grades and a policy.
- You receive benchmarked roles with the source of each figure stated, pay bands and grades, a placement of every employee against the band, an increment policy and a benefits review.
- Pay decisions stay with you. GullyHR shows what each choice costs and which roles it moves, and you decide what to pay and where in the market to sit.
- Statutory pay components and benefits are checked with a qualified professional, because the rules depend on your establishment and state.
The starting point
Do You Know Where You Stand Against the Market?
Pay drifts quietly. Each new hire is priced at whatever the market asked that month, nobody already inside is brought up to it, and the gap only becomes visible when a good employee leaves for a number you could have matched.
We benchmark role by role in the city you hire in, build bands around the result and cost the gaps.
You may be experiencing:
- Every offer being a negotiation, so the hardest bargainer earns more than the better performer.
- A good employee leaving for a competitor's offer, and finding afterwards that the role had moved well past what you paid.
- Freshers earning close to people with several years of experience, because new hires were priced at market and nobody else was.
- A large increase given to retain one person, which the rest of the team knew about within a month.
- No way to say what a new hire in a role may be offered without asking the founder.
- Increments decided by whoever is in the room, with no rule for what a strong year should earn.
- A second city being added, with no idea whether the same role should be paid the same there.
- Salary revisions given to the most visible or most vocal employees while quieter performers stay where they are.
- A new grade structure whose pay ranges nobody has checked against what the market pays.
- Promotions that arrive with a title change and no pay rule, so each one is negotiated afresh.
- An increment budget set without knowing what closing the gaps in the team would cost.
What we can help with
What the Benchmarking Covers
City-Wise Benchmarking
A salary for the same role differs between one city and another, so each role is benchmarked where you actually hire for it rather than against a national average that applies nowhere.
Source Transparency
Each figure carries where it came from and how many data points sit behind it, so you can see which benchmarks are solid and which are indicative, rather than being handed one confident number.
Grade Grouping
Roles grouped into grades by the size of the job rather than by title, so that a generous designation handed out years ago does not quietly set the pay for a whole level.
Pay Band Construction
A minimum, midpoint and maximum for each grade, built from the benchmark and from where you decide to sit against it, grade by grade rather than as a single company-wide position.
Employee Placement
Every current employee placed in their grade, with those below the minimum, above the maximum and bunched at one end listed explicitly, because the outliers are what the exercise is for.
Gap Costing and Phasing
What closing each gap would cost, with a suggested phasing you can accept or change, so the correction becomes a number you decided to accept rather than a surprise.
Increment and Offer Rules
What an increment is based on, when it is decided, how a promotion differs from a revision, what happens to someone at the top of a band, and the approval limits within which a manager may make an offer.
Benefits Review
Fixed and variable pay, allowances, insurance, leave and the statutory components looked at together, so you can see what a role actually costs rather than only what the salary line says.
The scope
What the Consulting Covers
The aim is to replace case-by-case pay decisions with a structure you can explain and afford. These are the parts we can review or design. The scope is agreed with you and can take all areas or only some.
Current Pay Review
Existing salaries by role, grade and location, recent offers and the pay reasons given in exits.
Role Inventory and Job Matching
The list of roles to benchmark and how each is matched to a comparable market role, with the limits of the match stated.
Market Data Collection
Published surveys, recruitment consultant quotes and your own offer and exit data, each source recorded.
Location Differentials
How the same role is priced in each city or plant you hire in, and which market sets the price for remote roles.
Grade Structure
How many grades the business needs now and which roles sit in each, based on the size of the job.
Pay Bands and Ranges
A minimum, midpoint and maximum for each grade, and the position you choose against the market.
Fixed and Variable Pay Mix
How fixed pay, allowances and variable pay are balanced for each grade and role family.
Employee Placement and Outliers
Where each person sits in their band, including those below the minimum, above the maximum or bunched together.
Gap Costing and Phasing
The cost of closing each gap and a suggested sequence for you to accept or change.
Increment and Promotion Rules
What an increment is based on, how a promotion is priced and what happens at the top of a band.
Offer Approval and Exceptions
The band within which a manager may make an offer, who approves beyond it and how exceptions are recorded.
Benefits and Total Cost View
Pay, allowances, insurance and leave read together so you can see what a role costs.
Working together
Ways to Work With Us
Pay Position Check
A short look at where you stand: a handful of key roles benchmarked, a first view of who sits outside a sensible range and a recommended next step.
Salary Structure Project
The defined project: benchmarks, grades, bands, employee placement, increment policy and benefits review, delivered as documents and a walk-through.
Structure With Performance
The pay structure built alongside goal setting and incentive design, so what you reward matches what you measure.
Yearly Refresh
A smaller piece of work each year to update the benchmarks, re-place employees and adjust the bands before the increment cycle opens.
We do not hold a proprietary salary survey. Benchmarks are assembled from published surveys, recruitment consultant quotes and your own offer and exit data, with the reliability of each marked.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the scope of your engagement, deliverables can include:
- A benchmark for each role, by city, with the source and the number of data points shown beside each figure.
- A grade structure that groups your roles by the size of the job.
- A pay band for each grade: minimum, midpoint and maximum.
- A placement of every employee against the band, with those below the minimum and above the maximum listed.
- A costed plan for closing the gaps, with a suggested phasing for you to accept or change.
- A written increment and promotion policy.
- Offer approval limits and a route for exceptions.
- A benefits and statutory components review, for confirmation with a qualified professional.
- A role-matching record showing which market role each of your roles was compared with, and how closely it matched.
- A note on grades where newer joiners and longer-serving employees sit close together on pay.
- A short guide for managers on explaining bands, increments and exceptions to employees.
Step by step
How We Work
Record the Starting Point
We take your current salary data, the offers made over the last year and the pay-related reasons given in exits. This becomes the baseline every later report compares against.
Define Roles and Grades
We agree the list of roles to benchmark, group them by the size of the job and settle how many grades the business actually needs now, which is usually fewer than people expect.
Benchmark Each Role in Its City
For each role we gather market data for the city where you hire, state where each figure comes from and how many data points sit behind it, and mark which benchmarks are indicative rather than solid.
Choose Where You Want to Sit
We show what it costs to pay at, above or below the market midpoint for each grade. You decide the position grade by grade, and the reason behind each choice is written down.
Build Bands, Place People and Hand Over
Ranges are built, every employee placed, and the outliers listed with the cost of closing each gap. The increment policy and offer limits are written, and a yearly review date is fixed. Where it is included in the engagement, a pilot with one function or one location is run first, and the bands and policy are refined from what managers and HR found before wider use.
The difference
What a Structure Gives You
A benchmarked pay structure helps you:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering current salaries by role and city, recent offers and the pay reasons given in exits, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Make offers inside a band the hiring manager can read, without a call to the founder.
- Explain why two people in the same role earn what they earn.
- Understand pay-related exits, because you know which roles sit below market and which do not.
- Run increments on a written rule, so the conversation is about the employee's year rather than the budget.
- Treat the cost of closing pay gaps as a number you decided to accept rather than a surprise.
- Price a role in a new city against local data rather than against what head office pays.
- Match each role to a comparable market role, with the match and its limits written down.
- See where newer joiners and longer-serving employees sit close together on pay.
- Prepare a revision cycle with a costed range rather than a figure agreed under pressure.
- Explain a pay decision to an employee, an auditor or an investor by pointing to the band and the policy.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Founder-Led Businesses
Companies where every salary was agreed one at a time and nobody can describe the logic behind the result.
Companies Losing People on Pay
Businesses that have lost employees to better offers and want to know where they actually stand.
Businesses Opening a Second City
Companies adding a location or plant, where the same role will be paid differently and nobody is sure by how much.
Teams About to Hire a Layer
Businesses recruiting a senior layer or a batch of fresh graduates and unsure what to offer.
Companies Facing Diligence
Businesses preparing for a funding round, a diligence review or an audit, where pay needs to be explained.
Businesses That Just Introduced Grades
Companies that have set up levels and now need a pay structure that matches them.
HR Heads Preparing an Increment Cycle
Teams that want a written basis and a costed range before the cycle opens, instead of a budget agreed late.
Finance Teams Planning Hiring Cost
Teams that need pay ranges by role and city to plan headcount budgets.
Businesses Hiring Remotely or in Several Cities
Companies pricing the same role across markets who need a stated rule for which market sets the pay.
Good to know
From Benchmark to Yearly Refresh
Building the structure
- Baseline: record current pay, recent offers and pay-related exits.
- Match: agree the roles and match each to a comparable market role.
- Benchmark: gather data for each city, marking each source and how reliable it is.
Using and refreshing it
- Decide: choose the position against the market for each grade.
- Place: set bands, place employees and cost the gaps.
- Refresh: update the benchmarks and bands before each increment cycle.
Pay data ages quickly. The refresh step keeps the bands and policy in step with the markets you hire in.
Good to know
Track Pay Position
Structure and placement
- Position in band: where employees sit between the minimum and the maximum.
- Employees outside the band: who is below the minimum or above the maximum.
- Pay closeness between new and longer-serving employees: where the difference is narrow.
- Benchmark age: when each role's market data was last refreshed.
Offers, exits and revisions
- Offer position: where recent offers land against the band midpoint.
- Pay-related exits: how often pay is given as a reason for leaving, by role and grade.
- Increment spread: how revisions are distributed across grades and ratings.
- Gap-closure progress: what was agreed and what has been delivered.
Measures use agreed definitions, and salary figures are reported at the level of detail agreed with you.
Good to know
Scope and Service Boundaries
Each engagement defines
The roles, cities and employee categories covered, whether variable pay and benefits are included, the data sources used, the deliverables and the implementation support provided.
Requires a separate agreement
- Payroll processing or salary disbursement.
- Opinions on statutory pay and benefit components.
- Job evaluation across the whole organisation.
- Incentive and variable pay scheme design beyond what is agreed in scope.
- Negotiating individual offers or counter-offers on your behalf.
- Yearly refreshes beyond the agreed period.
Pay decisions and your position against the market remain with authorised management. Policies and any statutory components should receive appropriate specialist review.
Good to know
Timeline and How to Prepare
Timeline
The schedule depends on the number of roles and cities, how clean the salary records are and how quickly decisions on positioning can be taken. We confirm it after agreeing the scope.
Useful inputs
- Current salary records by role, grade and location.
- Offer data for roles filled over the last year.
- Exit records with any pay-related reasons.
- Any existing grade or level structure.
- The current increment policy and the last cycle's decisions.
- Details of allowances, variable pay and benefits.
Where possible we work with coded or redacted records, and we agree the form in which salary data is shared.
Good to know
Confidentiality and Salary Information
Handled by agreement
Salary records are among the most sensitive information a business holds. Before work begins we agree what data is needed, who may access it, how it is stored and shared, the confidentiality terms and retention arrangements.
Market contacts
Whether and how any of your figures are shared when we approach recruitment consultants for market quotes is agreed with you first, including whether they are anonymised.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
It compares what you pay for each role with what the market pays for the same role in the same city, and turns the result into grades, pay bands, a written increment policy and a list of roles paid outside the band.
Published salary surveys, quotes from recruitment consultants who fill these roles, and your own offer, counter-offer and exit data. We do not hold a proprietary survey, and each figure carries its source and the number of data points so you can judge it.
We show what it costs to sit at, above or below the market midpoint for each grade, and recommend where that choice matters. The position you take is yours, and it is often different for different grades depending on how hard each is to hire.
Yes, and it usually matters more than people expect. The same role commands different pay in a metro and in a smaller town, so benchmarking against a national average produces a band that is too high in one place and too low in another.
Then the exercise confirms it and costs you little, which is a useful thing to know before an increment cycle or a funding conversation. In practice most businesses find a handful of genuine outliers rather than a systemic problem.
This is the market-facing, data-led piece: what roles are worth outside and how your pay compares. Rewards strategy is broader, covering the philosophy, job evaluation, variable pay design, promotion treatment and recognition. Benchmarking often sits inside it.
The benefits review looks at fixed and variable pay, allowances, insurance and leave together so you can see total cost. Statutory components are identified but not opined on. Please confirm those with a qualified professional.
A pay position check on a handful of roles is short. A full structure project depends on how many roles and cities are in scope and how clean the salary data is. The timeline is stated in the proposal after the role list is agreed.
No. The structure is delivered as documents and a workbook you can run from. Where you use the GullyHR platform, the grades and bands can be held there so offers and revisions are checked against the band automatically.
Where data is thin we mark the benchmark as indicative, and where there is too little to benchmark honestly we say so rather than produce a number. A reasoned range with its limits stated is more useful than a confident figure.
That is your decision. The midpoint is a reference, and many businesses choose a different position for different grades depending on how hard each is to hire. We show what each choice costs.
Each case is listed with the cost of closing the gap and a suggested sequence. You decide which to correct, how quickly and which to hold, and the reason is recorded.
Many businesses refresh once a year before the increment cycle, and sooner when they open a new city or hire a new layer. We agree a cadence with you based on how quickly your roles move.
Yes, where agreed in the scope. The benefits review reads fixed pay, variable pay, allowances, insurance and leave together so you can see what each role costs.
That is your choice. Some businesses share grades and ranges, others share only a person's own grade. We can help write a short note for managers on how to explain whichever approach you choose.
Current salary records, recent offers, exit reasons, any existing grades and your increment policy. We can work with coded or redacted records, and we agree the form of data sharing at the start.
Pricing depends on the number of roles and cities, the state of your salary data and the support required. Share your requirements and we will send a tailored proposal.
Find Out Where You Stand, Then Set the Bands
Benchmark each role in the city you hire in, group roles into grades, build bands around them, and see exactly who sits outside and what closing the gap would cost.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book a Benchmarking Consultation
Tell us which roles and cities you need benchmarked.
