As Indiana technology careers continue to grow and evolve, executives and HR leaders are eager to attract top talent to their organizations. When thinking about recruiting top talent, whether in or out of state, a question on everyone’s minds is what a total rewards package needs to look like in order to be competitive and viable to potential employees.

Recognizing an opportunity to provide insight to member companies and other tech organizations in Indiana, TechPoint partnered with local rewards experts, FirstPerson, to capture compensation information of tech positions throughout the state. The study explored salary ranges, salary structure, merit increases, and analysis of current pay for jobs identified in Jobs in Tech 101, a resource developed by TechPoint to answer what types of jobs in tech are available and clarify different paths of opportunity.

The ‘why’ of this study comes down to three things:

  1. Compensation is changing; what are the expectations?
  2. Promote Jobs in Tech 101–a community resource to enable people with more information about careers in one of the fastest growing, high paying industries
  3. Facilitate meaningful conversations surrounding talent issues.

Findings from the Compensation Study

HR professionals and executives from TechPoint member companies were among the first to hear the results of the study during a workshop on January 30 at Tinker House Events. Megan Nail, Compensation Advisor at FirstPerson, led the presentation of findings.

“When you’re trying to recruit, attract, and retain talent, especially in the highly-competitive technology sector, having a robust total rewards and compensation program is essential,” said Megan. “Base compensation and general salaries are quickly changing. It’s important to have relevant information to make sure your company is keeping pace.”

Benchmarking Overview – Effective date of January 1, 2020

But compensation goes beyond salary; Megan encourages employers to look at a Total Rewards Model, including community, well-being, learning, and more. “We need to sell all the great things we do in HR. Think about how to better communicate that when recruiting talent,” said Megan.

Megan also encourages employers to have a compensation philosophy and evaluate it on a regular basis. “We used to be able to evaluate compensation on a more annual basis, but not anymore, it’s really important to think about evaluating it on a more regular basis. A big trend we’re seeing is compensation being reviewed even quarterly or monthly to make sure companies are keeping pace with the needs of the workforce.”

Specifically, high performers are seeing the benefits of pay evaluations. The study showed that high performers:

  • Received 50% larger pay increases in 2019 over mid-performing counterparts and
  • Received 1.6 times the salary increase of average performers

At the end of the day, HR professionals need data in order to be strategic and get buy-in from leadership. “Have the data to justify what you’re asking for in order to attract candidates,” said Megan. “Then really look at how to prioritize and maximize what your investment is to get the best outcome.”

Feedback from Employers

In addition to sharing the results of the study, three different topic stations were facilitated by TechPoint staff to gather more information about what tech employers in town need to successfully recruit and retain talent.

“I always enjoy taking advantage of opportunities to network with and learn from other HR professionals in the tech industry,” said Nancy Gutwein, director of people ops (PHR) at Passageways. “This turned out to be a particularly valuable event for me as my company is gearing up to hire across the board this year. We want to make sure we’re up to date with best practices in determining compensation levels and recruiting top talent from Indy’s tech community and outside of the state as well.”

Katie Creighton, talent attraction partner (PLC) at Allegion, also attended in order to learn more about attracting and developing talent, specifically early career. “Allegion is not historically known as a tech company, so it can be challenging to attract early career talent with the right skills and interests to our opportunities, even though we’re very much focused on innovative technology and security solutions,” said Katie. “The brand awareness piece is big for us, so we’re always trying to think more strategically in how we familiarize what we do with potential candidates.”

When asked about data, trends, and tools they found useful, Nancy found the salary data particularly useful, while Katie sees the existing resources of the TechPoint Job Board and apprenticeship programs (like Xtern) as the two most valuable resources available.

“The salary data we were provided with is an incredible resource! It can be tough to determine appropriate salary levels without paying for compensation data, which we haven’t done for every position. It’s great to see where we are in line and where we should focus on making some adjustments,” said Nancy.

“The Job Board seems like a great way to promote our opportunities to a refined group of applicants that would put Allegion at the same table as some of Indy’s better-known tech companies, allowing us to tap into great talent that might not think to seek us out first,” said Katie. “The possibility of an apprenticeship program is something I see as an exciting new way to engage talent even earlier than we do today with our traditional college-level internship program. We have such amazing people who would be valuable mentors for youth, both in the corporate and manufacturing settings, introducing what we do in a way that provides an educational and meaningful experience to students.”

TechPoint’s mission is to transform the economy of Indiana in order to create a sustainable prosperity and quality of life for our citizens and future generations by building a strong ecosystem. Through our initiatives supporting the growth of companies, talent, and community, TechPoint is helping our city and state become a top tech ecosystem.

One of the ways we attract talent to our state is through the Red Carpet Experience, which has kicked off for spring. Help us sing our state’s praises and highlight our thriving tech ecosystem. Find out how now.  

The full “Indiana Technology Compensation Study” is available to TechPoint members. Members can contact their relationship manager. If your company is not a member but is interested, contact us. FirstPerson also invites you to RESOLVE, a conference they are hosting on April 16th. Learn more here.