<aside> 💡 You want to build your salary bands but don’t know what to start with? Or who to define what parameters should be used? We have a simple guide for you to follow: only 3 main steps and some answers to the burning questions you should ask yourselves about the band’s structure. Now let’s go!

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3 steps to build the bands structure and fill it with data

1. Defining the appropriate list of roles

The process to decide whether or not to create a band for each role in this company goes like this:

1. Do I have enough people in this role, or do I plan to hire more in the future, to justify creating a band? No, it’s a one-off role: then maybe you don’t need to create a salary band. Yes: then it’s worth creating one!
2. Do I plan to pay people in this role using the same rules as others in another role (i.e., I want to pay Front-End Engineers the same as Back-End Engineers): therefore, you should group multiple roles into one single band (in that case, Software Engineering)

More bands equal more granularity and precision in the way to manage your compensation but a heavier workload in terms of maintenance, while fewer bands are the opposite (less maintenance, less precision)!

Here is an example of 3 different levels of details a Tech team could use could start from:

| Option 1 - Very high level (for smaller companies) | Option 2 - Functional fit (for medium-sized companies) | Option 3 - Very granular (for large companies) | | --- | --- | --- | | Tech | Software Engineering Product Management | Front-end Engineer Back-end Engineer Full-stack Engineer DevOps Engineer … | | Sales | Account Managers Account Executives SDR/BDR | Account Managers Large Accounts Account Managers Mid-market Account Managers small businesses SDR BDR … | | Customer Success | Customer Success Manager Customer Support | Onboarder Customer Success Customer Support Customer Success Operations … | | Finance | Finance Manager Accountant | Finance analyst Finance controller Procurement Accountant … | | Marketing | Communication & Content Lead generation Product Marketing Management | Internal communication Public Relations Growth Manager Product Marketing Management Brand design … | | etc. | | |

2. Define your levelling framework

You won’t pay an out-of-school Data Analyst the same amount than you will pay one with 10 years of experience, right? That’s why, if you have not done already, you should create your own Levelling framework, to define internal job levels/job grades within your company. Whether you opt for industry-standard Beginner/Junior/Senior/etc. or A/B/C/D, or 1/2/3/4 is entirely up to you, however you can’t create salary bands without having defined even a basic levelling structure first.

Don’t know where to start? We have you covered with our guide on the topic:

Figures Leveling

Once you have your levelling structure in place, and having defined your bands above, you now have the first design of your salary structure (often called a salary grid):

3. Now, let’s define how to fill it out 🔥