How to determine employee market value and prevent poaching

Executive overview

High performers leave when they believe a competitor pays their market value. Understanding and matching market value is both a recruitment and retention tool.

Market research is the practical mechanism: identify role differentiators, select the right data sources, and compare external compensation to your own to stay competitive.

What market value means for employees

• Market value is the price the marketplace assigns to a skill set based on supply, scarcity, and experience required.
• Niche roles requiring years of education and limited supply command higher market value.
• High-value candidates expect competitive compensation — and will leave if they don't receive it.

How to research employee market value

• Identify role differentiators: years of service, experience, skills, education, certifications, level, location, travel requirements.
• Use these differentiators to narrow research to truly comparable roles — exclude levels that don't match.
• Key resources: Indeed, Salary.com, Payscale, recruiting firms, targeted Google searches.
• Match your data sources to the role type: LinkedIn/Indeed for white-collar, Stack Overflow/Lara Jobs for developers, Handshake for entry-level, competitor websites for location-restricted blue-collar.
• Compare offered compensation (wages and benefits) across similar postings to benchmark against your own data.
• For employees with varied skill sets, search multiple overlapping roles and synthesise the results.

Using a levels document to retain talent

• A levels document defines the skills and experience required to advance through each compensation level for a given role.
• It makes compensation logic transparent and accessible to employees.
• Transparency signals that the organisation recognises and values employee contributions.
• Reduces the effectiveness of competitor poaching by removing uncertainty about pay progression.