Building pay bands that survive scrutiny

A pay band is a statement about the value of a role, not the tenure of the person in it. When bands are reverse-engineered from existing salaries, they inherit every historical inconsistency.

Begin with role levelling: define the scope, decision rights and required capability of each level before attaching any numbers.

Benchmark against a defensible comparator set — comparable sector, size and geography — and document why that set was chosen.

Publish the structure internally. A framework nobody can see cannot be trusted, and transparency dramatically reduces the volume of ad-hoc pay negotiations.