---
name: Compensation Bands
description: Pay fairly and transparently within bands.
---
# Compensation Bands

Bands define the pay range for a role and level. They make pay consistent, defensible, and free of the accidental inequities that emerge from one-off negotiation.

## Design
- **Benchmark to market.** Use compensation data for the role, level, and location. Decide your posture (50th percentile? 75th?) deliberately.
- **Band width.** Typically a min, mid, max — wide enough to reward growth in-role, narrow enough to be fair.
- **Level criteria.** What distinguishes the levels? The band only means something if the levels are defined.

## Use
- Pay within the band. Exceptions (above band) should be rare and documented — they're the seeds of inequity.
- Address inequity proactively. Audit pay by gender, race, tenure-in-level. Patterns of difference demand correction, not explanation.