Senior Compensation Analyst

The Role

Analyzes and administers employee compensation programs to ensure pay practices are competitive, equitable, and aligned with organizational objectives.  Conducts market pricing, builds and maintains salary structures, and classifies jobs into appropriate grades and levels.  Develops pay recommendations, models financial impact of compensation programs, and administers merit and bonus planning cycles.  Prepares reports and analyses for stakeholders, documents policies, monitors regulatory requirements, and drives continuous improvement in compensation workflows and data quality.

Key Responsibilities

Conducts market pricing by participating in external compensation surveys, performing job matching, and evaluating competitive pay levels in base salary, bonus targets, and salary ranges.

Reviews and updates the company's salary structure, including pay grades and salary range spread/midpoints, to reflect market movement and internal equity.

Drafts, reviews, and/or edits job descriptions for consistency and completeness, evaluating and classifying new and existing job descriptions to recommend appropriate job levels, salary grades, and hourly vs. salaried statuses.

Maintains job and pay records within the HRIS, auditing employee job and compensation data periodically to identify and correct errors, duplicates, and classification inconsistencies.

Analyzes internal compensation data against internal salary structures and recruitment data to identify pay trends and resolve pay compression or equity issues.

Reviews compensation requests for new hires, promotions, transfers, and internal equity adjustments, developing recommendations to support compensation-related decisions.

Models the financial cost of proposed merit increases, market adjustments, and promotional guidelines using budget scenarios, and presents findings to HR leadership to support the compensation programs.

Administers the merit and bonus planning cycle by configuring planning tools, preparing analyses and manager guidelines, auditing submitted recommendations prior to payroll processing, and reconciling planned vs. actual compensation expenditure with Finance.

Prepares recurring and ad hoc compensation reports, dashboards, and presentations (e.g., pay equity analyses, headcount summaries, and range penetration) for HR leadership and business stakeholders.

Documents and updates compensation policies, procedures, and program guidelines, monitoring federal and state compensation regulations and flags necessary policy or pay adjustments

Delivers training materials and educational sessions to HR representatives and managers to explain annual compensation cycles and pay administration guidelines.

Identifies opportunities to improve compensation processes, reporting, and data quality through standardization, automation, and improvements to workflows such as job pricing or merit cycle

Job Requirements:

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Finance, Economics or a related field; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Progressive experience in compensation analysis, salary administration, job analysis/evaluation, and market pricing.

Experience in compensation modules, spreadsheet tools using formulas (e.g., nested lookup functions and pivot tables), and market pricing data aggregation software.

Experience with human capital management system, compensation management system, spreadsheet software with advanced functions, and business intelligence or reporting tools.

Experience conducting pay equity analyses using regression-based statistical methods preferred

Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) designation preferred