Zweig Group’s TOTAL COMPENSATION BENCHMARKING TOOL now available!

By Tyler Thompson

Zweig Group is excited to roll out the 2021 Total Compensation Benchmarking Tool. While our traditional Salary Surveys are a fantastic resource for benchmarking annual base salaries in the AEC industry, this dynamic spreadsheet will provide additional information that firms crave when addressing compensation for their employees.

In this tool, all the architecture, engineering, and construction firm  statistics that Zweig Group has tracked for decades – base salaries, bonuses, total compensation, bonuses as a percentage of base salaries, years of experience, and hours worked – are analyzed for over a hundred of the most common job titles in the AEC industry.

This comprehensive tool was compiled via the self-submission of an excel-based salary survey worksheet (also include with purchase of the tool).  The Total Compensation Tool contains aggregate data from all these submissions in an interactive excel-based format allowing for customized comparisons in each of the following areas contained on unique tabs in this file.

The first Data Representation Tab is an overview tab, displaying a bird’s eye view of a job title. The two major charts on the page show a salary breakdown and total compensation plotted against year of experience. Next, there is a demographics section that will show you who filled out the survey according to an employee’s age and gender followed by the firm’s staff size and growth rate. Job descriptions are shown to help differentiate between job titles. To round out the tab, we included results on if this employee typically received a bonus and/or was eligible for overtime.

The Firmographics tab offers the data in statistical form. In addition to being able to select a specific job title, you will be able to select a specific statistic and see the breakdown between the different firm demographics. For example, if you want to see bonuses for Project Managers in the Civil Engineering department, it will show the mean, median, lower quartile, and upper quartile for the position overall, followed by the statistical splits between staff size, age range, firm type, firm growth rate, and region.

The Regional tab gives the traditional regional analysis that Zweig Group uses for the United States (New England, Middle Atlantic, Pacific, etc.), but it also breaks the data down by subregion and state. The dynamic chart in the middle of the page automatically sorts the states in descending order to better visualize where each state fares for a certain statistic and job title.

With the total US version or one of our region-specific subsets (West, Central, East), firms will be well-equipped with data to benchmark their compensation. While the Salary Surveys are by no means obsolete, the 2021 Total Compensation Benchmarking Tool presents an opportunity for firms to take that extra step towards perfecting the craft of employee compensation.

Zweig Group is constantly gathering data on every area that impacts the management of AEC firms. Participate in any survey and receive a customized report or sizeable discount (50% or more) on any Zweig Group research publication.  Click here to see topics open for participation.

Tyler Thompson is the Research Manager at Zweig Group. He can be reached at research@zweiggroup.com.