Compensation is a crucial subject at any firm. At an organization like Buffer, the place our salaries have been clear since 2013, compensation is a clear inside dialogue the place the entire Buffer staff can share ideas and suggestions.
So much has modified in our wage method over the previous few years. We took a quite simple method and made it extra correct to the labor market, and most lately, we’ve been targeted on enhancing our method to make it a real benchmark for a remote-first world.
On this submit, we’ll share an summary of our compensation philosophy and a easy clarification of our wage method. Transparency is an extremely highly effective instrument, and we hope that sharing our strategy to compensation may also help others who’re presently navigating this house.
How we take into consideration compensation
Our strategy to compensation has developed through the years, and our wage formulation have taken varied kinds, however just a few basic pillars of our general compensation philosophy haven’t modified.
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In the end, we view compensation and advantages because the set of instruments that empower our teammates to convey their greatest to Buffer in order that we are able to share that very same generosity in service of our prospects. We would like each single buyer interplay to be a pleasant expertise. By guaranteeing our staff members are fulfilled and engaged with their work, we are able to construct the options and instruments that help our prospects to realize success and success of their private and work lives.
These key ideas information all the choices we make about our staff’s compensation and advantages:
Transparency: We overtly share our strategy and all salaries to create belief, maintain ourselves accountable, and function a useful resource for the business.
Simplicity: We purpose to take care of an easy-to-understand method that permits anybody to simply see how we arrive at any particular person wage.
Equity: We be certain that these with the identical function and tasks who’re on the similar expertise stage are paid equitably.
Generosity: We pay above market to draw the staff we want, thrive as people, and keep away from exceptions and inequity ensuing from negotiation.
Our wage method
Each base wage at Buffer is derived from our wage method. The formulaic strategy minimizes biased choices about compensation. This has been a helpful instrument to make sure our consciousness of any gender wage hole since our wage method is rooted in goal market elements utilized persistently throughout the staff. Learn our newest pay evaluation for extra insights into equal pay at Buffer.
Our method is your function x price of dwelling = your wage.
How we decide function compensation
We benchmark every function to knowledge from Radford, a platform that gathers compensation and advantages knowledge from firms taking part in international surveys twice per 12 months. The function benchmark is predicated on the software program business and the fiftieth percentile of San Francisco market knowledge. We chosen San Francisco as part of our precept of generosity as it’s a aggressive labor market.
How we apply price of dwelling
After we’ve benchmarked for place and expertise stage, we multiply by a price of dwelling issue that objectively considers one in every of 4 geographical areas compared to San Francisco’s price of dwelling and property worth index.
Excessive price of dwelling
100% of the San Francisco market = multiply by 1.
Examples: San Francisco, CA & New York, NY
Intermediate price of dwelling
90% of the San Francisco market, multiply by 0.90
Examples: Singapore & Sydney, Australia
Common price of dwelling
85% of the San Francisco market, multiply by 0.85
Examples: Boulder, CO & Madrid, Spain
Low price of dwelling
75% of the San Francisco market, a number of by 0.75
Examples: Bangalore, India & Wroclaw, Poland
These price of dwelling multipliers have in mind being a world staff whereas closing the hole present in conventional compensation approaches.
To see this method in motion, take a look at our Salaries web page with the entire Buffer staff’s clear salaries.
The way forward for our wage method
For the previous few years, we’ve had the purpose to additional simplify our method and eliminate the price of dwelling consideration as a element of the method. In observe, this may imply we’d eradicate the low, common, and intermediate bands to pay everybody on the similar stage of San Francisco market salaries.
The results of this shift can be a $1.2 Million improve in working bills primarily based on the staff we’ve got right now (March 2021). Whereas this alteration stays a consideration, we’ve intentionally set a purpose to do that incrementally somewhat than suddenly. Investing in our staff is vital, although we should weigh trade-offs, and on this season for Buffer, we consider that increasing our staff measurement is extra in step with serving our buyer’s wants.
In the meantime, we’re additionally seeing market shifts which can be certain to impression international compensation. With extra firms embracing distant work, entry to expertise is not depending on the native expertise pool. You don’t have to dwell in Silicon Valley or New York Metropolis to work for firms headquartered in these areas. You additionally don’t have to headquarter in these cities to entry prime expertise! Whereas we’ve by no means regarded solely at native market to benchmark our salaries, we acknowledge that price of dwelling will seemingly change into increasingly more irrelevant as a part of the motion in direction of supporting a world workforce.
Wish to work on a staff that has clear salaries? Try our present job openings right here.