Table of Contents
What is Indigo Benchmarks?
Benchmarking is the comparing of market data, such as salaries and costs, to see what the market trends 📈 are based on actual statistics. When benchmarks are established, companies can use the information to check where they fall in the statistics and then strategise their competitiveness more effectively.
A really good benchmark system is based on data that is accurate, extensive, and representative - and most importantly, real-time. Outdated data is pointless when trying to establish current trends.
Nowadays, finding the right employee is critical to a business's success. A big part of attracting and keeping such employees is offering competitive pay. Visibility is crucial to this process, because if you can't see what salaries are available across the market then how can you knowingly offer a fair and competitive one?
That's where Indigo Benchmarks comes in.
With so many companies using Indigo Suite to handle their payroll and HR needs, Shireburn Software is in a great position to run our own benchmarking tool.
First, we anonymised our data, aggregated it, organised it and cleaned it to provide real-time insights to our users based on 84,000+ data points. We came up with different metrics and have used salary brackets as the key measurement 📏, and included a separate measurement for compensation benefits to boot.
This means there was another step in the process: sifting the basic salary information from the variable components that make up the rest of the salaries. Once these were separated, we took a current rolling average based over 12 months 🗓️ for the variable components, and these were then segregated by occupation.
Finally, we packaged all of this into Indigo Benchmarks.
Get in touch with our sales team on sales@shireburn.com to start using the Indigo Benchmarks add-on.
Data Confidentiality and Anonymisation in Indigo Benchmarks
Indigo Benchmarks aggregates data in an ironclad, anonymised method, using fields such as Job Title, Gender, Age Bracket, Salary and Compensation Benefits, without exposing personal information. Our processes adhere to strict ISO certifications, and data is handled with the utmost care, respecting all privacy regulations to ensure that no identifiable data is ever shared or compromised. Our goal is to provide valuable insights while ensuring your data remains secure and confidential.
Accessing Indigo Benchmarks
Once licensing has been sorted, users will need the following permissions:
Payroll_TenantBenchmarks to view Benchmarks in the main menu and access the Benchmarks module.
Benchmarks_MarketData to see the Market Data dashboard in Benchmarks, as well as to be able to access it.
Benchmarks is positioned between People Insights and Administration in the main side menu of Indigo.
Interacting with Indigo Benchmarks works much the same as in Indigo People Insights. Check out this article to learn how to navigate these modules!
The Market Data Dashboard
The first dashboard in Indigo Benchmarks is Market Data, which—as the name implies—displays data reflecting the market, made up of occupations, salaries in quartiles, compensation benefits, and demographic charts.
From the dashboard header, you can choose which Occupation Group / Occupation / Role' (hereafter referred to as Occupation Group for short) to view, see when the data shown was taken, and check how many Datapoints and Companies are included in the Occupation Group currently being viewed.
You can also look for occupations using the Search function in the Occupation Group dropdown. The dropdown is sorted into hierarchical categories, with each main category having a collapsible section of occupations which in turn have their own collapsible ranked roles.
Occupation and Salary Grid
The key market data that has gone into Indigo Benchmarks is shown in this grid: all the occupations in the selected Occupation Group, the salaries shown in quartiles (Lower, Median, and Upper), and a visual representation of each occupation's data rating.
Occupation: a list of roles found in the Occupation Group chosen in the dashboard header, containing all occupations that matched our benchmarking criteria, from C-suite titles to entry level ones.
Lower Quartile: the salary value at the first quarter mark of the dataset. E.g. if there are 1000 datapoints, it would be the 250th point from the 1st to 1000th.
Median: the exact middle salary value of the dataset. Using the same scenario above, the median would be the value at the 500th datapoint.
Upper Quartile: the salary value at the third quarter mark of the dataset. Once again, in the above scenario this would be the 750th point.
Data Rating: a grading out of 5 stars. The more stars, the greater the number of data involved in that particular piece of information. Hover over an occupation's star rating to see how many companies and datapoints are contained in the data.
⚠️ Remember: quartile and median values are 🙅🏻♀️NOT the same as percentages, and a median is NOT an average!
📝 Note: You can click on individual entries in the grid to filter the rest of the data, but when clicking on any of the visuals on the page the grid does not update to reflect the selection.
Compensation Benefits
This bar chart shows the percentage of aggregated, anonymised, live datapoints having other remuneration variables outside of their basic salary, along with the rolling 12 month average in Euros. The benefits are shown in descending order from highest percentage to lowest percentage.
The Roles Filter
The total number of roles that went into an Occupation Group is shown in brackets alongside the title Roles. If there are more than seven roles you will need to use the scrollbar to view the rest.
You can hover your mouse over a role to see the responsibilities and skills listed in Indigo for that position.
Demographic Doughnut Charts
The bottom section of the dashboard is taken up by four doughnut 🍩charts showing different demographic data: Service Years, Nationality, Age Bracket (Years), and Gender.
Service Years
Service Years
See how many years in service have been spent by the datapoints in the Occupation group selected, shown in percentages with the legend to the right of the chart.
Top 5 Nationalities
Top 5 Nationalities
See the top five nationalities present in the current Occupation Group's datapoints by percentage. Hover over the different segments of the doughnut to see the nationality, number of datapoints, and percentage shown in that particular part of the chart. Click the blue expand icon in the top right corner of the chart can to view the full screen version.
Age Bracket (Years)
Age Bracket (Years)
View the different age brackets of the datapoints in the selected Occupation group here. The chart show percentages for each segment, along with the legend—sorted from highest to lowest percentage—to the right of the chart.
Gender
Gender
Check out the percentages of the gender statistics of the datapoints in the Occupation group. The chart legend is on the right, listing the present genders in the dataset in order from highest to lowest percentage.
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