A glossary of terms for Compensation Benchmarking
Lattice's compensation benchmarking is powered by Mercer. Therefore, definitions may differ from Key Terms for Compensation.
- Job function: The type of work being done by a group of employees
- Job level/type: The category of career paths at a company and the level within the job type
- Location: The location relevant for each salary benchmark
- Breakout by: Compensation results based on a selection of specific additional filters such as Company size (in $), Industry, and Performance level (Top, & Hire status)
- Currency: The currency of the benchmark
- # of companies: The sample size of companies included in the benchmark data
- # of employees: The sample size of employees included in the benchmark data
- Base salary: This consists of the annual base salary plus any typically offered allowances (excluding car) as part of the compensation package. Fixed Base is calculated for all employees except in situations where an employee might be "commission-only". All employee records in Comptryx (Mercer) with a reported annual base salary will have a Fixed Base salary calculation.
- Bonus + Variable target: The total annual short-term incentive target award for any incentive plans, commission plans, cash profit-sharing, or discretionary bonuses for which the employee is eligible. Target bonus+variable represents the amount of incentive/bonus the employee would receive from achieving target performance goals. The bonus+variable target represents the sum of all bonus/incentive payments given to an employee. Values of bonus+variable target are collected and displayed as an award amount and "zero" targets are included in the calculations.
- Bonus + Variable actual: The total of Bonus+Variable incentive awards actually paid to employees for the previous plan year as part of any incentive plans, commission plans, cash profit-sharing, or discretionary bonuses. Employees not receiving an actual bonus+variable incentive award are included with zero values.
- Total cash target: The annual amount an employee can receive in base salary, plus the target short-term incentives, and allowances. Calculated as the sum of Base Salary + Bonus+Variable Target + Allowances.
- Total cash actual: The annual amount an employee actually receives in base salary, actual short-term incentives, and allowances. Calculated as the sum of Base Salary + Bonus+Variable Actual + Allowances.