Wage & Benefits Surveys for HR Teams
The benchmarks every comp review and benefits committee depends on, built for HR leaders running internal studies and for associations running studies across member companies.
Why HR teams use Sensible Surveys
Comparable Data You Can Defend
HR leaders are asked to defend compensation decisions to executives, boards, and employees. National salary surveys are expensive and rarely match the cohort you actually compete with for talent. Sensible Surveys lets you run your own study, against your own peer set, with a methodology your stakeholders can defend.
Associations and industry groups use the platform to run member-wide benchmarking studies, so every member gets back local, comparable data they could not assemble on their own.
Survey Planning
Before we get started, we work with you to understand the decisions the data needs to support. Our first step is a set of working sessions to walk every question in the template against your specific data needs. We recommend edits, adjust branching logic, and align the structure with any prior survey so your data is directly comparable year over year.
What you get
Sensible Surveys Premium Edition
A year of access to our fully-featured platform. Build, launch, remind, and analyze any number of surveys for your team or your members. Engage us to run the study end-to-end or run it yourself.
Advanced Benefits Survey Template
The default benefits template covers every aspect necessary at industry and enterprise levels: PTO, insurance, retirement, wellness, leave, and more. 174 questions you can edit, remove, or extend.
Compensation Module
Pay percentiles by SOC code, filterable by industry, company size, employee type, shift type, career path, and percentile or actual wages. Anonymized via Safe Harbor for member-facing reports.
Participant Assistance
Whether your participants are member companies or your own business units, our team helps every step of the way so completion rates stay high.
Intro & Follow-up Phone Calls
US-based, full-time staff make calls to establish trust, help participants complete surveys, and explain the value of participation.
Welcome & Follow-up Emails
Personalized, automatic emails inform participants where they are in the process and remind them as deadlines approach.
Video Calls
We jump on video calls with participants to walk them through tricky data entry, help them upload existing wage data, and review example results.
Safe Harbor by Default
Every member-facing or participant-facing view runs through Safe Harbor anonymization. Whenever a slice has too few respondents to protect identities, the platform automatically hides the underlying numbers, so no participant can be reverse-engineered out of a benchmark. Your admins can still see the unmasked data for internal review.
Support When & How You Need It
Whether you need a quick answer or end-to-end help running a survey, we’re available by phone, email, and video M–F, 9am – 5pm Eastern.
HR & Association FAQs
What's the minimum number of participants for results to be meaningful?
It depends on the slice. For high-level benchmarks (a single salary band by job title) even 20–30 respondents gives useful direction. For tighter filters (industry × company size × shift type) you need more. We design your Safe Harbor threshold during planning so any slice under threshold stays hidden rather than risking misleading numbers.
Can we benchmark against national averages too?
Sensible Surveys produces local and peer-set data. National surveys can’t give you that. We don’t pull from BLS or external sources, but most teams use the two together: national for context, your survey for the cohort you actually compete with for talent.
How is this different from a consultant-led salary survey?
A consultant delivers one report. You produce a living dataset. The methodology is Ph.D.-led to the same standards a consultant would meet, the cost is dramatically lower, and year-over-year comparability is built in because participants’ prior answers pre-fill the next cycle.
Can we restrict report access to participating members only?
Yes. You control who gets access to the released results. Many associations make participation the price of admission. Members who fill out the survey get the report; non-members or non-participants pay a separate fee or are gated out entirely.
How is data anonymized when our cohort is small?
Safe Harbor is configurable per survey. You set the minimum-respondents threshold; below it the platform hides counts and shows “Below threshold” rather than risking re-identification. Admins can still see unmasked data for internal review.
Can admins see individual company submissions?
Designated admins can if you enable it. Participant-facing views always show aggregates only. No individual company is ever exposed to peers, site selectors, or third parties.
Complex surveys to send and don’t know where to start?
Book a 20-minute demo. We’ll show you the system, talk through your goals, and tell you whether we’re a fit. No pressure.