How to Price Compensation When an Employee Wears Multiple Hats

COVID-19 has impacted many areas in the workplace and one that may be overlooked is job design and compensation. Have your employees’ duties and responsibilities changed based on the current environment? Many organizations have employees who have taken on more work as a result of workforce reductions and now have hybrid roles where they previously did not. These may have started as temporary assignments but if these additional tasks continue, it may be important to ensure you are paying for these hybrid roles and the additional duties taken on. Some options for how to pay for these additional responsibilities are short-term premiums if the assignment is meant to be temporary, or look at market pricing the role including the new additional duties.

Hybrid jobs typically are unique to a particular organization, specialized industry or smaller organization and include a variety of functions and responsibilities. Many organizations create blended jobs to fill organizational needs or to capitalize on individual strengths. For example, a Bookkeeper who also functions as the afternoon Receptionist and takes on some Human Resources duties.

Market pricing hybrid jobs can be challenging, as most salary surveys assess standard jobs that are easily comparable from organization to organization.

When matching hybrid jobs, below are a few methods to consider:

• The Majority Rules Approach: Match to the primary duties with the survey job and increase the competitive salary by a percentage premium for the additional responsibilities.
• The Combination Approach: Consider all of the different job components, pull data for each and calculate a weighted average between the market matches that reflects the same percentage of time spent on each role.
• The Highest Common Denominator Approach: Collect data for all of the components of the hybrid role and use the data of the higher-paid job.
• Focus on Major Functions of the Job Description: Minor functions of lesser value will typically not change your job’s overall worth, so put the majority of your emphasis on the major functions of the job that illustrate both the external as well as the internal value of your job.

Oftentimes organizational needs and circumstances will require more of a hybrid pricing approach, which lends itself to being more of an art than a science. With combining a formal market data analysis and sound business judgment that is based on a thorough understanding of the positions within your organization, you should be able to identify a pricing approach that is fair and suitable for your organization and your employees.

Cascade Employers Association offers a variety of salary surveys to utilize when market pricing your roles and our experienced compensation team is here to help with any job-pricing you may be struggling with.