Compensation benchmarking for Trade associations: fair pay for a market office run on conversation
In many trade associations pay is agreed in a chat with the treasurer. A simple scale, checked against similar offices, makes salaries fair to explain and easier to review each year.
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Share your requirementsWhy compensation benchmarking matters in trade associations
The clerk who joined ten years ago is paid less than the accounts assistant who joined two years ago, because the treasurer at that time was careful with money. The field assistant gets a phone allowance only because he asked. Each increment is a personal request to an office bearer, and staff learn that pay follows who they know.
Benchmarking replaces this with a method. List the roles, describe each in a few lines and look at what similar associations, market offices and small firms pay for comparable work in your city. Build a scale with a range for each role, place each person in it and plan how to move those below the range. Leave out sums and rates in public notes and share them only with the executive and the person concerned.
How to set it up
1. List every role and who holds it
Include clerks, accounts, field assistants, event helpers and support staff, with the date of joining and the current pay. Keep the sheet confidential.
2. Describe each role in a few lines
Say what the person does, how much independence they have and what skills the job needs. It helps to compare like with like.
3. Gather comparisons
Ask other associations, nearby offices and a few small firms in the market what they pay for similar work. Note the range, and the benefits that come with it.
4. Draw a simple scale
Set a range for each role with a lower, a middle and an upper point. Place each person and note who is below, within or above the range.
5. Plan the corrections over time
Bring those below the range up in steps within the budget, and explain the logic to each person. Review the scale once a year at budget time.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Check whether any two people doing similar work have very different pay without a clear reason.
- Ask a clerk how they would raise a request for an increase and compare it with the treasurer's view.
- Note which benefits, such as allowances or festival gifts, are given by custom and to whom.
- Look at whether the field assistant's costs are met fairly.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach compensation benchmarking in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
Ask a few similar associations, local offices of other bodies and small firms. Informal enquiries across a handful of places often give a usable range. Treat the results as guidance, not as exact figures.
It can, if people are placed below the range. Explain the method, plan the move in steps and recognise loyalty with a clear point in the scale. Surprises are what hurt, not the scale itself.
Once a year, at budget time, with a look at the comparisons every two or three years. A regular rhythm stops pay from becoming a series of private requests.