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Conducting a 1st party wage survey
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Conducting a 1st party wage survey
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What is the best way to conduct a wage survey for our plant positions myself without running into anti-trust issues?  And if you are wondering why I would want to do the survey myself, my boss as
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Forums  »  Topic Forums  »  Legal Forum  »  Conducting a 1st party wage survey

Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/6/2012 10:41 PM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 4
First: 5/28/2012
Last: 8/8/2012
What is the best way to conduct a wage survey for our plant positions myself without running into anti-trust issues?  And if you are wondering why I would want to do the survey myself, my boss asked me to, otherwise I would just use 3rd party data.  

Thanks!
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Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/7/2012 1:49 PM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 173
First: 9/29/2011
Last: 2/11/2013
Not sure I completely understand here.  Are you talking about obtaining plant position salary data from other companies/organizations or simply reviewing internal salaries?
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Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/8/2012 9:05 AM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 144
First: 9/21/2011
Last: 2/8/2013

Externally there is not a 'good' way  -- I suspect no one in other organizations would give you the data directly, because then they too could be in hot water under the Sherman Act for colluding/wage fixing, etc.

Internally -- does he want you to do a compensation analysis of current employees and compare them to each other, ranges, etc?  You might be able to find some data online through job postings or through a system like salary.com or glassdoor.com (however they aren't always the most accurate).  But if your jobs are very specific, that can make it much harder to find good data.

One thing to think about is that most of the time if you are a participant in one of the 3rd party surveys, they often give a hefty discount on the cost of the final report.
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Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/8/2012 10:14 AM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 13
First: 2/6/2012
Last: 8/30/2012
Hi:  Seeking/gathering information from other employers may raise anti trust issues.  See DOJ/FTC Antitrust Safety Zone Statements for insight/assistance regarding this matter.    Dave Arnold, Ph.D., J.D. 
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Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/8/2012 11:46 AM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 173
First: 9/29/2011
Last: 2/11/2013

It's an interesting question and thanks for posting it here.

What I've seen indicates that doing your own survey of companies would violate anti-trust legislation. Based on some initial cases, a "safe harbor" from anti-trust violations would include  having a third party conduct the survey, the survey should have more than 5 participants, and the salary info can't be any more recent than 3 months.  I don't know if that's what finally came out of litigation on this several years ago, but I would certainly keep these criteria in mind.
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Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/8/2012 11:24 PM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 4
First: 5/28/2012
Last: 8/8/2012
In Response to Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey:
Not sure I completely understand here.  Are you talking about obtaining plant position salary data from other companies/organizations or simply reviewing internal salaries?
Posted by nork4


Yes, my apologies, I was referring to external companies.  
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Re: Conducting a 1st party wage survey

posted at 8/8/2012 11:28 PM EDT on Workforce Management
Posts: 4
First: 5/28/2012
Last: 8/8/2012
Thanks everyone!  
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