Learn how to use the Spherion salary guide to access accurate salary data, set fair pay ranges, reduce turnover, and attract top talent in your market.
If you want to stay competitive in today’s hiring market, knowing what to pay your team is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. Offering attractive pay helps you pull in qualified talent, reduce turnover, and build a workplace where your employees feel valued. And with Spherion’s salary guide, you get a clear, data-driven picture of what compensation looks like for dozens of roles in your local market. Here’s how to make the most of our recently released Fall 2025 salary guide.
What is a salary guide, and why does it matter?
A salary guide is a research-backed resource that compiles salary data for a variety of positions across multiple industries and locations. The Spherion salary guide uses compensation data from ERI (Economic Research Institute) and organizes it in a format that’s easy to read and apply to your own business decisions. Whether you are a small business owner or part of a large HR department, this document serves as your go-to compensation guide for understanding pay data, payroll data, and salary benchmarks.
Why should you refer to a salary guide?
A salary survey like Spherion’s allows you to align your compensation data with what’s happening in your local job market, ensuring your offers stay competitive. With accurate salary data, you can budget labor costs with confidence, set pay that attracts high-quality candidates, and reward current employees fairly. Having a salary guide in hand means you can navigate today’s hiring challenges with clarity and avoid falling behind.
The state of today’s talent market
Hiring is shaped by factors outside of any individual employer’s control. Understanding the forces that are affecting talent supply and demand helps you position your business strategically. Here are some of the biggest influences on hiring today.
Scarcity of qualified candidates
One of the biggest hurdles employers are facing right now is the low unemployment rate. When fewer people are actively seeking jobs, businesses must work harder to attract and retain talent. Competitive pay is a key part of that effort, and salary benchmarks help you understand exactly how your salary compares to the market.
Industry-specific shifts
Different industries are experiencing very different hiring climates. Manufacturing and some professional services have seen slower growth, while sectors like IT and healthcare continue to face talent shortages. Having access to localized and industry-specific salary survey data means you can adjust your pay strategy based on the realities of your market, so you can capture more of the available talent pool.
Economic uncertainty
With ongoing questions about the economy, many employers are reluctant to overhire or commit to salary levels that may become unsustainable, should a downturn occur. A reliable compensation guide can help you find a middle ground: competitive enough to attract talent, but grounded in realistic payroll data.
Why knowing market pay matters
Setting salaries that reflect the market is pivotal to long-term success. Paying fairly helps you hold on to your best people, keep morale high, and avoid constant backfilling of roles. Plus, competitive, rewarding salaries can enable you to:
Reduce turnover
Employees who feel fairly compensated are less likely to leave, saving you the costs and disruptions that come with high turnover. When you use salary benchmarks from the Spherion salary guide, you ensure your pay rates reflect real market conditions and keep employees loyal.
Create clear career paths and keep employees engaged
Salary data also helps you create transparent career paths within your organization. When you know what the next pay tier looks like for a given job, you can show employees how they can grow—and earn more—by developing new skills and staying with your company.
Attract top talent
When you advertise a job with a pay range that matches market expectations, you instantly build trust with candidates, and you drive more high-quality candidates to apply. According to SHRM, 66% of companies posting pay ranges saw an increase in applicant quality, with 70% also seeing more applications overall. The Spherion salary guide gives you the confidence to post ranges that are competitive and fair.
Plan your labor budget effectively
Accurate payroll data is also a big part of your labor budgeting and forecasting. Whether you’re planning next year’s operating budget, estimating costs for a new project, or building a proposal for leadership, having up-to-date salary survey data ensures that all the rest of your numbers are realistic, too.
How to read a Spherion salary guide
Our salary guide is designed to be practical and easy to use, but understanding its layout will help you get the most from it. Here’s what you’ll find on each page and how to interpret it.
Market location:
Each guide is specific to a particular geographic market. This means you’re using localized salary data, not broad national averages that might not apply to your area. A job that pays one amount in a large metro might have a different pay range in a smaller city, and that’ll all be laid out for you in your market’s guide.
Job title:
Each row of data corresponds to a specific job title. These titles are standardized, so you can compare them against your own internal roles. If you need clarity on what a job entails, the guide is paired with job descriptions to help you match positions accurately.
Compensation percentiles:
The guide presents salary data by percentile to help you adjust for differences in experience or performance. The 50th percentile represents the midpoint, or market average, for that job. The 25th percentile represents lower-end pay, while the 75th percentile shows the higher end of pay ranges. This lets you decide whether you want to target entry-level candidates, mid-career professionals, or highly experienced hires.
Years of experience and organization size:
Many roles are broken out by experience level, so you can see what to pay someone with zero to two years of experience compared to someone with 10 or more. For executive roles, you may also see salary data based on company size, often measured by revenue. This ensures your compensation data matches your organization’s scope.
Compensation data:
All dollar figures in the guide are based on ERI’s trusted research. This gives you reliable salary benchmarks that reflect what employers in your area are actually paying, helping you stay competitive.
How to put salary guide data to work
The value of salary data is all in how you apply it. Once you know and understand the numbers, there are many ways to put them into practice across your hiring and retention efforts to make your company more competitive.
In job postings
Salary transparency is increasingly important to candidates. Posting a salary range up front not only attracts more applicants but also helps filter out candidates who are outside your range. This saves time for both you and the job seeker.
During performance reviews
Use the Spherion salary guide as a reference point during annual, quarterly, or even monthly reviews. If you find that employees’ pay is falling below market, you can adjust proactively and keep top performers engaged.
When budgeting and forecasting
When you’re opening a new location, expanding a department, or planning a major project, accurate payroll data ensures you allocate enough resources. Salary benchmarks prevent you from underestimating labor costs, so you stay on track.
In employee communications
Sharing salary survey insights with your team can help them understand how compensation decisions are made. This builds trust and shows that you are committed to fair, competitive pay practices.
Download your Spherion salary guide today
Spherion’s salary guide is a simple but powerful tool that helps you to stay competitive in a changing labor market. It helps you attract qualified talent, reward your current team fairly, and plan your labor costs with confidence. Download the Spherion salary guide for your market, and start using real-world salary data to guide your decisions today.