When $150K a year really just is not fair

You're a b-to-b media CEO. Your company is doing okay, actually, especially compared with a few other competitors in the industry. You've had to tighted your belt in recent years -- since the downturn, who hasn't? But the economy is a little better, lately, and one of the issues you face is compensation. Are you in danger of losing your talent to your competitors? Is it time to look at salary adjustments?

Pick a job as an example. A fairly top level job. You're paying your pro about $150,000 per year. Is that the going rate? What's typical for execs at that level these days? What you really want is data like this, based on confidential information from 18 people who have the same job title, from companies similar to yours:

So it turns out that annual compensation of $150K puts this employee in the lowest 10th percentile of people with the same title -- perhaps an evaluation would be in order. What if you could get this data, but with the actual job title listed at the top of the table? You can.

Or maybe you are the talent management director for your b-to-b company. You have to make decisions and recommendations about compensation all the time -- and you need to know how your company stacks up against standard industry benchmarks. How do salaries vary by region? By title? What about unit size? Long-term incentives? What if you could get this info for over 150 job titles, broken down into corporate, magazine, digital and event categories? You can.

ABM and MPA partner every year with Towers Watson to produce a report with the data you need on compensation for event, online and print job titles. The report is free to members. There is just one catch -- this proprietary research is not available to the public. It is also not available to all ABM members. Only companies that contribute their data to the project receive the aggregated research results.

The deadline for inclusion in the 2012 report is Aug.3. To participate, contact Towers Watson compensation analyst Kevin Kraus at 914-289-3389 or e-mail [email protected]. 

By Michael Moran Alterio