Employee question: How can I grow in my career here?

To address this question, your job architecture must be relevant. A job architecture is a living entity that requires regular attention and adjustment to remain effective. As time goes by, your organization’s needs change, new technologies emerge, new jobs are created, and market dynamics shift. If your job architecture isn’t refined in response to internal and external factors, it can soon become ineffective as a tool for mapping out an employees career path.

Take a look at the job architecture you have now and evaluate whether structural changes are needed to career streams, job levels, and job families. Don’t do this alone — consult with your department managers to gather information around the current and future state of their workforce, how work is organized, the differences in levels, and anything else that may influence the design of the job architecture. Additionally, take a look at examples of job architecture and leveling outside of your company or engage a consultant who can provide you with an understanding of different job architecture designs.

Once refreshed, you can use the job architecture as a springboard to activate robust career pathing discussions. Currently, most job architectures are languishing on the sidelines misunderstood and underutilized. Mercer's US Mercer QuickPulse™ Survey: Job Architecture Edition (March 2024) reveals that 78% of HR members understand the value of the job architecture for both effective compensation management and talent mobility, but 75% of organizations do not believe their managers understand how to use job architecture to communicate career opportunities to employees. In that same survey, we also found that organizations which use their job architecture for career pathing have the highest ROI.

Just as job architectures evolve over time, your training for managers must be continuously refreshed. How can you educate in bite-size pieces over the year? How can you use digital tools and existing communication channels to nudge managers to have career conversations? Don’t let change management be an afterthought. Start planning your strategy now, working with leadership and internal communication colleagues.

Start here: Refine your job architecture to align with business needs and the external market.

Take it further: Equip managers with the knowledge and tools needed to have career pathing discussions with each employee.

Employee question: What skills do I need to learn to make the move to job XYZ?

For a manager and their employee, knowing that there are jobs available in higher career levels or in other job families is a good first step. The inevitable next question though is, “how can I get there?” To have a fuller, more action-oriented and tangible career-development conversation, managers need skills to be front and center in the job architecture.

A skills-powered job architecture enhances agility, performance, and employee engagement. A recent Mercer study, “Best and Next Practices in Competency, Skills and JA Management,” reports that two thirds of organizations expect a 20% efficiency increase due to the implementation of skills-powered job architecture. Beyond enabling career pathing discussions, the ROI from adding skills can be measured through improved productivity, increased engagement and retention, better governance of job level and pay inflation, and reduced HR process costs.

Digitizing your job architecture can greatly enhance the dialogue surrounding it, benefiting both managers and employees. By leveraging digital platforms like Mercer's Belong, you can make the job architecture transparent and accessible, making it easier for both parties to engage in meaningful discussions. Belong offers a comprehensive job architecture feature that empowers employees to explore various aspects of their career within the organization. This includes the ability to delve into job families, career levels, and employee career pathways. Having a place for the architecture to live is key to enabling employees to gain a deeper understanding of their potential career trajectories.

Start here: Supercharge your job architecture with skills.

Take it further: Use digital tools to enable managers to guide employees as they identify and build the skillsets needed for specific career goals.

Employee question: Is my pay competitive?

Frequent benchmarking is essential to ensure compensation remains competitive. The good news is that your hard work on refreshing the job architecture will greatly improve the efficiency of your benchmarking activities. With an accurate, externally relevant job architecture and correct mapping of jobs, you can more easily find survey benchmarks and determine if you are paying competitively.

Before you start benchmarking, take the time to critically review your methodology and involve leadership in the discussion. Here are some things to consider that will impact your benchmark methodology:

• What are your current and future external talent markets?
• How do those differ across the organization?
• For hourly jobs, are you considering the full external talent market (i.e., other industries and location-specific data)?
• Are you using trusted data sources? Are they providing you with the job coverage that you need?
• Do you have data specific to new job families and specialized roles (e.g., machine learning and GenAI)?

You will need two versions of your pay benchmarking methodology: one that is highly specific for HR and one with less detail and without “HR speak” that managers can understand. Similar to your efforts to educate managers on the job architecture, you’ll need to develop a strategy for ongoing educational content on compensation for managers. You can start by polling a representative group of managers about what they would like to know. Then, develop training sessions and/or communications that focus on their questions and interests. Be mindful of the communication channels used — for maximum impact, share your benchmarking story via channels that are easily accessible for all of your managers.

Start here: Refine your methodology and benchmark compensation relative to market.

Take it further: Provide managers with information on the process and compensation philosophy so that they can confidently own the outcomes.

Employee question: Is my pay fair?

Pay transparency and pay equity are critical considerations in 2025 and for the foreseeable future. According to Mercer's 2023-2024 Inside Employees' Minds Survey, 46% of employees say they are unlikely to apply for a job if compensation information is not available in the job posting. Additionally, Mercer’s “The Path to Pay Transparency” report states that employees who believe pay is fair are more engaged and committed to their organization. While there are many state laws that dictate pay transparency requirements, particularly as they relate to job postings and salary negotiations, there are many additional decisions that you will need to make along with your leadership team. Are you ready to reveal pay ranges to employees? In order to do so, there are several actions to take before you pull back the curtain.

• Assess pay equity across your organization. Pay equity, including addressing pay compression, is crucial to ensure fairness and mitigate recruitment and retention challenges.
• Stay informed about legislation related to pay transparency. In the US, there is widespread legislation on a state-by-state basis with an emphasis on communication of pay ranges to candidates and/or employees. Beyond just state and local pay transparency regulations, the EU Pay Transparency Directive is now a concern for anyone with employees in the EU.
• Consider the changing environment and what level of proactive transparency aligns with your total rewards strategy.

Beyond determining a strategy, equipping managers to have conversations about pay is crucial. However, there is a significant gap between employee knowledge and employer communication. While 68% of employees know their pay range, only 1 in 4 employers openly communicate pay ranges. To bridge this gap, organizations can focus on two key strategies to improve communication:

• First, provide managers with context. This includes sharing the company's compensation philosophy, explaining how pay increases are determined, and providing information about salary structures and ranges. Equipping managers with this knowledge allows them to build a complete storyline around pay and address employee questions in real time.
• Second, provide ongoing support to managers; for example, making HR teams available as a resource, helping managers practice and prepare for conversations, and quickly addressing questions or issues that arise. By offering support, you can ensure that pay discussions are handled professionally and that employees feel heard and valued. Implementing these strategies will help bridge the knowledge gap, foster open and confident pay discussions, and promote transparency, fairness, and employee satisfaction.
• Start here: Set a pay transparency strategy and conduct a pay equity review.
• Take it further: Prepare managers to have conversations about pay positioning and pay equity.

Priorities for creating more engaged managers 

HR professionals have an opportunity to empower managers and shape conversations around compensation and careers. Are you still laying the groundwork with essential frameworks, such as:

• Refining the job architecture and incorporating skills
• Benchmarking compensation
• Establishing a pay transparency strategy
• Conducting a pay equity study

Or are you ready to take it further and elevate your approach by equipping managers to engage with employees on:

• Career development paths
• Skills needed to advance
• Competitive pay
• Fair pay

Consider your organization's current stage. What actions will you prioritize to empower managers in 2025? Whether you’re building foundations or enhancing existing frameworks, seize this opportunity to enable managers. In the quest to motivate and retain top talent, you need managers who can effectively discuss careers and compensation.

Would you like to connect with an expert to identify opportunities to empower managers in your organization? We’d love to speak with you! 855-286-5302 or surveys@Mercer.com.

About the Authors

Juliet Archer, Principal
Juliet Archer is a Principal in Mercer’s Career business in Los Angeles. Juliet specializes in incentive design, executive compensation, and total rewards strategy. Her passion is helping clients align their short- and long-term incentive programs with their business strategy to drive results.

Leilani Wesley, Sr Analyst
Leilani Wesley is a Sr Analyst in Mercer’s Career business in Los Angeles. Leilani has experience in incentive design, job architecture, and total rewards strategy.