Knowing how to calculate an employee salary will help ensure that the wages you pay for each position in your company remain competitive with the salaries of other firms in Singapore.
If you expect to keep the people you have and recruit new hires, you’ll need to continually benchmark and adjust your salaries.
Performing reviews and evaluations of your staff's salaries regularly is especially critical today when there simply isn’t enough skilled talent to go around.
So, how do you do that? Let’s take a deeper look by answering some frequently asked questions about calculating an employee salary.
When should you conduct a salary review — and why do it regularly?
Regularly conducting salary evaluations can help to fortify your company’s retention efforts.
Money remains a significant factor in employees’ overall job satisfaction.
As your employees gain experience — and meet or exceed performance expectations — they want to feel the company is compensating them appropriately.
Keeping your best is especially important in a talent-scarce environment when new hires ask for, and often get, ever-bigger salaries.
A regular salary review can also uncover other important information, such as if you’re overpaying for certain positions.
Related: Should I put the salary offer in my job advert?
What resources should you reference when setting salaries?
Robert Half’s Singapore Salary Guide are great resources for compensation information and insights into the latest hiring trends.
You might also check out online job boards for positions in your industry and region.
What else should you consider when setting salaries for employees?
Getting the salary baseline is essential. But wages aren’t the only thing to weigh in your overall salary review.
More companies in Singapore are assessing their employee benefits and perks, vacation time and bonuses to land and keep valued staff.
Remember, too, that job duties can evolve and expand significantly over time.
Establish compensation for each role in a range rather than a specific amount so that you can factor in these variables.
Anecdotal information can also be valuable. When team members depart your organisation, conduct an exit interview to gauge whether or not they felt fairly compensated.
Consider that feedback when determining the salary level you will advertise for the open role.
Related: 4 ways to offer a competitive salary and benefits this year
How can the salary review process help your business plan for the future?
Not only do salaries for a particular role change over time, based on the incumbent’s experience level, but the market value of some jobs can also change quickly — especially in this era of rapid technological innovation in Singapore.
Businesses’ growing adoption of new technologies enhances job expectations and, in some cases, creates entirely new professions.
Many of the jobs in Singapore needed in the future workplace will require professionals to have broader skill sets, which will, in turn, demand higher levels of compensation.
As employees develop more expertise with cloud systems, automation and artificial intelligence (AI), for example, they will become increasingly more valuable because they can provide greater efficiencies, deeper insights and easier access to company resources for remote workers.
How to calculate an employee salary
As an employer in Singapore, you’ll want to pay close attention to how jobs are evolving in response to technological change.
You can also use a salary review when setting salaries for new positions you’d like to add to your team, including these emerging roles with new skill sets.
The salary review process at your firm should be ongoing but never routine, and it always requires focused effort and thoughtful research.
Remember also that evaluations of some jobs at your company may indicate that the role, though important, doesn’t need a full-time occupant.
Adopting a flexible staffing strategy with the use of highly skilled contract professionals allows you to tap specialised resources for these tasks without the cost of hiring a permanent employee.
Robert Half Singapore offers a range of talent solutions to meet your staffing needs, as well as advice on Singaporean salaries across the Lion City.
