Select Your Geographic Strategy

This details the various Geographic selection options associated with OpenComp's Pay Strategy.

Geo Tiers: The geographic component of the OpenComp Benchmark is based on Tiers. Our Tier 1 cities are San Francisco, CA and New York City; these 2 cities are essentially indexed at 1.00 (or 100%). All other cities, based on their Geographic Tier, are at a discount to Tier 1.

There are 6 Geographic selection options. Completing this part of your organization's Pay Strategy is relatively straightforward. So, let's get into it.

The Local Setting

This is the most common and popular setting to select as an organization's Geographic Strategy to create Ranges. This option aligns pay to employees' geographic location.

The Headquarters Setting

Yet another straightforward setting. It essentially aligns pay to an organization's headquarters irrespective of where employees reside.

The National Average Setting

A 3rd "simple-setting" is to align pay to the national average for organizations (companies) like yours. This setting accomplishes that.

The 'Tech Exception' Setting

This setting has an exotic element to it: It basically aligns compensation for a Technology employees to San Francisco (at Tier 1 Geo) and all other employees, to their geographic location. This setting is desirable for organizations that want to attract top Tech Talent.

The Premium Cities Setting

This Premium Cities setting aligns to pay to employees' compensation to groupings of cities (or Geographic Tiers). It essentially "discounts" or "adjust" employees' pay relative to our Tier 1 Geos. The screenshot below details this. It shows our Tier 2 cities (Boston, DC, Los Angeles and San Diego). This produces a Page Range (or Bands) for adjusts pay for employees that live in those cities to 90% of SF pay.

Adjusting Premium Cities: If you want to adjust the settings in Premium Cities, you need to select the Custom Setting option.

The Custom Setting

With this option, the world is your oyster. You can specify a Geographic setting that is pegged to locations and roles. The screenshot below illustrates this point. It produces a Salary Ranges at 110% of SF Market Rates for individuals in Tier 1 and Tier Geos who are ALSO in Technology roles.

The OpenComp Benchmark, among other things, is based on a Geographic Tier framework.