bridge the gap in your compensation strategy

What is the problem you are trying to solve?

Do we have pay equity? Over the last few years, concerns about pay equity have entered the independent school landscape. Probably fueled by lawsuits in higher ed and other industries and by a genuine desire to achieve equity that is aligned with our values, this is a hot topic and something that many schools are struggling with. 

Who should we compare ourselves to? Creating useful benchmark cohorts is a little more challenging than you might think. There is an enormous difference between the schools you want to benchmark against and the schools you can benchmark against. And your local public school systems probably play a role in your compensation philosophy.  

Are we keeping up with our peers? Public school pay increases and inflation have made all of us reexamine our own pay scales so that we can understand where we are and where we want to be relative to our benchmark groups. 

Are our pay systems in line with best practices? And what even are some of the best practices? Step and lane, stipends for advanced degrees and extra duties, pay differentials for departments or divisions, merit based pay - these are just a few of the items under consideration and discussion today. 

do those sound like some of the problems you are trying to solve?

Having conducted over 50 salary studies for schools, we have the expertise and the experience to help you with your compensation model. The MISBO Salary Study consists of a three part approach that is high touch and aligns with your mission and compensation philosophy. It's ok if you don't have a compensation philosophy yet, we will help you create one!

PART 1: INTERNAL ANALYSIS 

Using correlation and regression analysis tools, we will unpack your current salaries to understand what factors are considered. There is a difference between how you think your salaries are built and how they are actually built. This first step analyzes what your data actually tells us so that we can identify gaps and outdated practices and help find unintended equity issues. We have written the book on equity audits and have made a limited pay equity calculator tool available you can find here. 

PART 2: EXTERNAL BENCHMARKING

We build custom benchmark groups based on your school's characteristics, generally your tuition and your enrollment - these are a proxy for your overall operating budget. Usually, we start with four groups: national, regional, state, and local. If there are other defining characteristics that make more sense, then we use those. We place your values at the median of each of the cohort groups so that you have some aspirational schools as well as schools that are a closer match. This part requires a combination of skill and artistry and there are numerous opportunities to fine tune the cohort groups. We will also consider public school data if it is appropriate. Any cohort groups that you normally use are helpful starting points. 

PART 3: COMPARISONS AND SUGGESTIONS

With the dynamic tools we have created, we can show you what it costs overall and per employee to attain a percentile value of your chosen cohort group. You choose the cohort group, the percentile of that cohort group, and several other features that we have found most schools want. 

COST, A SAMPLE & GetTING Started

The cost of a salary study by MISBO is $2,500 if the school is a member of MISBO (or of our partner associations, PAISBOA or Cal-ISBOA). This fee is much lower than consultants you will find because it is offered as a service to our members - it is in fact possible to get extremely high quality and a low fee at the same time. The fee is higher if you are not a member of one of these associations and will be discussed with you prior to work commencing. MISBO membership is affordable and is invoiced on your student count. More information is available at www.misbo.com/membership. 

Click here for a sample of the scope of work and narrative report that is provided. When you are ready for more information, click the button below to schedule a meeting with MISBO President & CEO, Dr. Damian Kavanagh.

Click here to schedule a meeting
so we can listen to what you need.