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For WorldatWork Members Salary Budget Planning Guide , tool;Salary Budget Planning: Using Market Data to Formulate a Recommendation Report , tool;Compensation Structure Policies and Practices , research;The Potential Dangers of Aggregated Statistics , Journal of Total Rewards article;Don’t Underestimate the Power of Non-Financial Rewards , Workspan Daily Plus+ article; For Everyone 2025-2026 Salary Budget Survey , research;2024-2025 Salary Budget Survey , research;Salary Budget Planning Playbook: Data, Strategy and Insights for the Year Ahead , webinar, live event Aug. 19;‘Year of Contention’: Employers Mull Tight Budgets, Pay Expectations , Workspan Daily article;Mercer Report Shows 2025 Actual Salary Increases Less Than Anticipated , Workspan Daily article;The Pros and Cons of Giving Managers Discretion on Merit Increases , Workspan Daily article;Essentials of Compensation Management , course; NEW!

;A workers’ compensation component ($1.70), which reflects the workers’ compensation benefits that must be provided to comparable delivery workers.; U.S.

Misclassification could invite fines for unpaid taxes and workers’ compensation and hold organizations liable for unpaid wages and benefits such as healthcare and retirement plans.

This year’s economic buzzword, however, is not what is driving pay increases, compensation experts say.

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These tools can: ;Automate routine or repetitive HR tasks.; ;Gather and interpret large data sets, such as benchmarking metrics from multiple sources — especially useful for large or global organizations.; ;Provide real-time compensation analysis and reviews of salary structures.; ;Offer a bird’s-eye view of an overall compensation system, bringing patterns to the surface that might not have been noticed in isolation.; ;Incorporate corporate-wide salary information and market data to better equip managers to make equitable, consistent compensation decisions.; ;Urge managers and total rewards (TR) professionals to think through and justify their salary decisions or performance ratings — capturing that information, identifying patterns and codifying them to create more robust data and systems moving forward.; ;Generate personalized talking points to help managers explain pay decisions to employees.; ;Provide data to back up compensation decisions.; ;Apply compensation rules the

Key Takeaways A chance for compensation innovation .

Most organizations believe sharing pay ranges with employees will lead to: ;Significantly more questions about compensation from managers (70%);; ;More questions about compensation from employees (68%); and,; ;More pay negotiations (53%).; Also, concerns about managers’ ability to explain compensation programs and possible employee reactions are the most cited factors holding back pay program communication.

Brad Robinson, the compensation director for MasTec’s Power Delivery Group, and Rebecca McConnell, the compensation director for Konica Minolta Business Solutions, completed the panel.