{"id":174663,"date":"2010-01-13T12:01:56","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T17:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/?p=58382"},"modified":"2010-01-13T12:01:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-13T17:01:56","slug":"where-the-jobs-are-payscale-lands-new-board-member-exposes-three-trends-in-human-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/174663","title":{"rendered":"Where the Jobs Are: PayScale Lands New Board Member, Exposes Three Trends in Human Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
hiring<\/a>, trends<\/a>, Investors<\/a><\/div>\n

\t\t\"PayScale\"<\/a>
\n\t\tGregory T. Huang wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re a startup founder, Fortune 500 executive, or average Joe on the street, everyone is wondering what 2010 will look like for jobs and compensation. Indications so far are not good. Unemployment rates are sky-high. Salary freezes are still rampant. At the same time, nobody can seem to agree<\/a> on how to pay executives what they\u2019re really worth. ($23 billion in bonuses<\/a> to Goldman Sachs employees?)<\/p>\n

I took the opportunity to talk about some of these issues with the leadership at PayScale<\/a>, a Seattle company that provides real-time compensation data to employers and employees, through what it calls \u201cthe world\u2019s largest database of individual compensation profiles.\u201d From where he sits, PayScale CEO Mike Metzger has an intriguing view of current trends in \u201chuman capital,\u201d which I loosely define to include the talent flow, skill sets, experience, and compensation levels associated with creating economic value.<\/p>\n

PayScale also announced a new board member today. She is Robin Ferracone, the CEO of RAF Capital, executive chair of Farient Advisors, and an expert in human resources with more than 25 years of consulting experience. Ferracone, who\u2019s based in the Los Angeles area, has made a modest but undisclosed investment in PayScale, according to the company. (Metzger and Ferracone first met through another board member, Patricia Nakache from Trinity Ventures.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very interesting business,\u201d Ferracone says. \u201cWhen you get pay data directly from the consumers, you then get information about the individual. What PayScale does is it\u2019s able to fill in the gaps about jobs that don\u2019t get picked up by surveys.\u201d That includes things like salaries across different offices and geographic regions for a given company, say—all updated continuously instead of once or twice a year.<\/p>\n

PayScale was founded in 2002 and has been backed by Fluke Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Trinity Ventures, and others. A year ago, the company raised a $2 million Series C funding round<\/a>. Metzger says PayScale\u2019s staff now numbers in the \u201chigh 40s,\u201d and that the company is not yet profitable, but is \u201cdriving hard\u201d for profitability in 2010. He adds that it is coming off its best year and best quarter ever, in terms of revenue.<\/p>\n

Here are the top three trends that Metzger and Ferracone are seeing in human capital as we head into 2010. (Metzger prefaced his comments with the caveat that PayScale sells its aggregated data mainly to small and medium-size businesses, so his view is biased towards those customers, versus Fortune 1000 companies.)<\/p>\n

1. 2010 will not revert \u201cback to normal.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of organizations in 2009 froze their compensation adjustments, says Metzger. \u201cFlat was the new up. One of the themes we\u2019re starting to hear now is that in 2010, things will not go back to normal.\u201d That means companies are \u201cbeginning to sharpen the lens they\u2019re using relative to the cost of human capital\u201d and \u201ctaking a conservative posture in when they\u2019ll make adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The days of across-the-board pay increases plus merit bonuses seem to be gone for good. Overall, Metzger calls the situation \u201ca little bit of a reset in terms of comp adjustment strategy.\u201d And Ferracone adds, \u201cWe\u2019re seeing [companies] not trying to make up for lost time, on the salary front.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Talent is still in high demand in certain fields.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like nobody\u2019s hiring. \u201cThere continue to be sectors and geographies where there are high demands for talent—IT in the Bay Area, nursing everywhere, and accounting in major metro …Next Page »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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hiring, trends, Investors Gregory T. Huang wrote: Whether you\u2019re a startup founder, Fortune 500 executive, or average Joe on the street, everyone is wondering what 2010 will look like for jobs and compensation. Indications so far are not good. Unemployment rates are sky-high. Salary freezes are still rampant. At the same time, nobody can seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}