I’m Alistair and I help startups and small businesses build trust through fair and transparent pay
The Challenge
Pay transparency fosters a workforce of loyal and engaged employees, however compensation is often shrouded in secrecy. A black box of subjective assessments and random figures that are difficult to verify which leads to frustration, confusion, and a lack of trust.
If you’re like most of my clients, you’re probably facing the same questions:
- “How can I get a pay rise?”
- “How are our salary benchmarks calculated?”
- “Why is X making more than me when we’re doing the same job?”
- “Why don’t we display salary bands on job adverts?”
- “Why do we pay higher salaries in location A vs location B?”
- ”I heard Netflixs pays more for this role. Why don’t we pay the same?”
What happens if nothing changes?
❌ Your best people leave. They’ll find fairness and transparency somewhere else.
❌ Trust erodes. Pay secrecy breeds suspicion and resentment.
❌ Growth stalls. Pay confusion distracts teams from actual work.
The Solution
I’ve turned the complex world of salary benchmarking into a clear, actionable process. My guide, compensation calculator and compensation philosophy framework have already helped over 70 organisations spanning from the UK to New Zealand, San Francisco to Oman take their first steps towards pay transparency.
How We'll Work Together
I’m intentionally running a one-person business, so you’ll work directly with me from start to finish.
We'll have weekly working sessions focused on specific topics, plus ongoing communication through email, Slack, and Loom videos.
Here’s what we’ll cover in a typical project
Step 1: Project Set Up & Discovery
Starting the project on the right foot
Step 2 - Market Data
Choosing relevant and reliable data to compare yourself against
Step 3 - Job Architecture & Levelling
Building a ‘common language’ for mapping roles back to the market and comparing ‘apples to apples’
Step 4: Compensation Philosophy & Salary bands
Defining your ‘North Star’ for pay decisions and building your salary bands
Step 5: Analyse market position and pay equity
Spotting pay gaps and understanding the cost to close them
Step 6: Educate & launch
Making sure everyone understands how pay works
Two Key Deliverables
At the end of a project you'll have two powerful tools to help drive pay transparency across your organisation:
1. Compensation Calculator
2. Compensation Philosophy
Pricing
I believe in practising what I preach, so my pricing is fully transparent. Below, you’ll find the two ways in which we can work together, along with what you can expect from each.
Option 1️⃣ Low-Touch Engagement | Option 2️⃣ High-Touch Engagement | |
Best for | Best suited for companies that have already levelled their team, selected a relevant and reliable data source, and need expert input to turn that data into meaningful salary bands and carry out a pay equity audit – fast. | This option is ideal for People teams who are at an early stage in their thinking about compensation or have a blank canvas, and need structured, hands-on support to build and roll out their salary bands and compensation philosophy from scratch. |
Process | A lightweight and rapid approach—focused purely on getting you to the right numbers efficiently. | Follows my six-step process, ensuring a robust, scalable, compensation strategy. |
Discovery process | ✅ Lightweight half day discovery | ✅ Review of existing materials and Manager interviews |
Project Management | ❌ Not included | ✅ Fully managed, end-to-end project ownership |
Levelling | ❌ Not included | ✅ Support in choosing a levelling framework and then levelling the organisation against it |
Workshops & Training | ❌ Not included | ✅ Running workshops to define your compensation philosophy
✅ Manager training on how to talk about pay & communicate compensation philosophy clearly |
Stakeholder Engagement | ❌ Limited | ✅ Works closely with key stakeholders to align compensation with business strategy |
Salary bands and pay equity analysis | ✅ Market based salary bands built using chosen data provider + overlaying these on to the team for pay equity analysis | ✅ Market based salary bands built using chosen data provider + overlaying these on to the team for pay equity analysis |
Materials | ✅ Access to all materials* | ✅ Access to all materials* |
Project Duration | 2-3 weeks | 3 months |
My Time | 2-3 days | 8-10 days |
Total Cost
(ex VAT) | £5,950 - £6,925 | £11,800 - £13,750 |
At the end of an engagement you’ll walk away with the following:
✅ Compensation calculator ✅ Compensation philosophy ✅ Levelling framework (not skills based) ✅ Project plan and a list of all the decisions you’ll need to make ✅ Manager training decks ✅ ChatGPT example prompts for you to use for any future analysis ✅ Instructional videos created just for you and your calculator ✅ A ton of tried and tested pre-built comms and launch materials
Materials costs = £4,000 + VAT
❌ Salary benchmarks
The price for salary data from providers such as Radford, Mercer, Ravio, Pave etc is not included, so you’ll need to set aside an annual budget for this.
Annual costs for these can range from FREE to £10k depending on your location. I'll help you determine which option best fits your needs.
I operate on a time-based model, tracking time to provide a clear record of where I spend it.
The number of days estimated above are based on my typical engagements. After initial discussions, I'll be able to provide a precise estimate.
My day rate is £975 + VAT
Not ready for a project?
Whether you need a second opinion on salary bands, want to refresh your current salary benchmarking, discuss your location-based pay strategy, or just pick my brain about market data sources, this option is for you.
I work by the hour or day, starting with a free scoping call to understand your needs. From there, we dive straight into solving the specific comp challenge holding you back, so you walk away with clarity and a clear path forward.
Hourly rate @ £150 + VAT
Day rate @ £975 + VAT
FAQs
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