PAT-186 · comp 101
Comp 101 — pay ranges in five minutes
Every pay structure your company could build comes down to four decisions. Here they are in plain English — taught with the shapes themselves, because the shape is what makes it click. The numbers live underneath; the shape is for seeing it.
A pay range is a band
For any role, a is the lowest-to-highest pay you'll offer: a minimum, a (the target for a fully-competent performer), and a maximum.
Decision 1 — the market anchor (lead, match, or lag)
Where do you aim the midpoint against the ? That's your . It's the single biggest positioning choice — and the real lever on retention: anchor higher and fewer outside offers beat your pay, so fewer people leave.
Decision 2 — the range spread (how wide)
How wide is the band? The is how much more the top of the range pays than the bottom. Wider gives room to differentiate pay within a level; tighter keeps a level more uniform.
Decision 3 — the number of levels
One role's pay span can be a single wide band or sliced into several stacked levels. More levels means more steps to progress through — which is its own retention lever: people can see a path up.
Decision 4 — overlap (and why it isn't really free)
How much do adjacent levels share? That's . Here's the part most people miss: overlap isn't an independent dial. Once you've set the spread and how far apart the levels sit, the overlap is fixed — overlap = 1 − step ÷ spread. Pick any two; the third follows.
Put it together
Anchor, spread, levels, overlap — that's the whole grammar. Every structure is a point in those four choices, and the same shapes let you see what you've chosen. Try it: start from your priorities, design one by hand, or compare your current structure to the options.