Zweig Group’s TOTAL COMPENSATION TOOL now available!

By Tyler Thompson

Zweig Group is excited to roll out its 2020 Total Compensation Tool. While our traditional Salary Surveys are fantastic, this dynamic spreadsheet will provide additional information that firms crave when addressing compensation for their employees.

All the statistics from architecture, engineering, and construction firms 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 125 of the most common job titles in the AEC industry.

The salary survey worksheet used during the data collection process is also included for firms to fill out. This will allow firms to compare themselves to the AEC industry on one of the tabs discussed below. Also, firms will have the option to fill out their compensation data in exchange for a sizable discount on other Zweig Group products.

As far as data representation goes, the tool is broken down into three major tabs. The first one is the Overview tab, which displays 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 the employee’s age and gender followed by the firm’s staff size and growth rate. Job descriptions have been added this year 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.

In contrast to the Overview tab, 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.

Speaking of regions, the Regional tab is the final tab and perhaps the most interesting of the group. This tab not only gives you the typical regional analysis that Zweig Group uses (New England, Middle Atlantic, Pacific, etc.), but it also breaks it 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 overall Total Compensation Tool or one of our region-specific subsets (West, Central, East), firms will be well equipped with data to benchmark their compensation tactics. The Total Compensation Tool presents an opportunity for firms to take that extra step towards perfecting the craft of employee compensation.

TYLER THOMPSON is Zweig Group’s Research Manager. He can be contacted at    research@zweiggroup.com.