When at a job interview, knowing the salary scale is a daunting task to many. This is also a challenge when getting a promotion or even changing jobs.
Peter Kinyanjui saw the gap between the job and the pay, prompting him to start up a salary scale portal.
“Everybody wants to know if their salary is fair. Most people think they should earn more, but this conviction is based mainly on subjective feelings. People don’t like talking about their salaries, not even with their family members or friends. For many of us, salary has become a taboo,” he said.
Through a partnership with a Slovakian company, Profesia, Salarydata.co.ke is an online salary survey tool where employees in Kenya can get a comparison of salaries of about 600 position titles.
“The tool is free and allows users to anonymously submit and compare their salaries with others in the same position and region. Everyone wants to know what a fair salary is,” adds Kinyanjui.
The portal allows users to complete a short form on the website and find out for free if their salary is lower, higher or comparable with other respondents in the given job position and region.
Each completed questionnaire is subject to a three-phase control until deemed valid, before the data is included in calculations for other users.
Everyone who completes the questionnaire with 14 questions (8 of which are compulsory) becomes a respondent, and receives a free salary comparison with the average of the reference sample. The data from each respondent are valid for one year, and there is no interference with the information entered in any way.
All data in the salary survey are anonymous.
“Prospective employees or employers can use this portal to benchmark pay to know what to ask for or offer,” says Kinyanjui.
Once enough data is accumulated on the portal, Kinyanjui plans on selling it to companies for the human resources department. This will allow the companies to not only do an inhouse comparison but also know where they are ranking in terms of employee remuneration, benefits and labour practices.
In the dynamic world where millennials are averaging a year or two in a post before they get restless and shift, the portal would be an invaluable tool to officers charged with employee retention.
This, according to Kinyanjui, was one of the key reasons he opted to target companies with the data that will be collected from the various sectors across the country.