What’s new?

You can now use benchmarks that are adjusted to reflect US national average pay levels. This new feature allows you to use an accurate, standard, and uniform approach when setting a compensation framework for your company. You can view and use the US national average by: 

1. Viewing Benchmarks at the US national average pay level 
2. Setting your Compensation Plan at the US national average pay level 

How can I review US national average geo-adjustments? 

US national average benchmarks are available to review on the Benchmarks page by following these steps:

1. Navigate to the “Benchmarks” page

2. In the Location selection drop-down, users can select “All US locations (national average)”

How can I use the US national average in my compensation plan? 

If your location-based compensation strategy targets compensation for all employees at the US national average, you can follow these steps to build that into your Compensation Plan

1. Navigate to “Compensation plan” on the top nav.
2. Navigate to “Location-based pay”
3. Under “USA Adjustments” select “Pay everyone the same regardless of location”
4. Check the box labeled “Use national average”

Questions? 

If you have any questions about US national average geo-adjustments, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

Our benchmarks now support one new job area and two new specializations:

• Manufacturing (newly supported job area)
• HR Generalist (new specialization within the HR job area)
• Product Marketing Manager (new specialization within the Marketing job area)

Note: The sample size for new benchmarks are generally smaller than existing benchmarks, which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size. 

How do I see benchmarks for the new roles?

You can view benchmarks for the new roles by:

Visiting the Benchmarks page and selecting “Manufacturing, “Human Resources, or “Marketing” under Area. Within “Human Resources” and “Marketing”, you can select any of the new specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

This will allow you to view compensation benchmarks for levels 1 - 8 for these new roles

The above process can be followed for each of the new benchmarks.

How do benchmarks for the additional benchmarks affect the Employee Scorecard?

The compa-ratio is a quick way to compare an employee's compensation to your plan's target rate for a given job area, level, and location. The compa-ratios for an employee assigned to the new benchmarks will now be calculated using the target compensation for the new benchmarks.

How do I update my benchmark version to use new data?

You can preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

Here you will have the opportunity to preview the new plan with the updated benchmarks version and assess their impact on your Scorecard before accepting the new plan.

Questions? 

If you have any questions about the new data, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

Carta Total Compensation customers will have access to a complete view of employee details with their salary information, equity information, and market targets now also visible in the Cap Table Stakeholder modal. 

How do I access it? 

1. Users can navigate to ‘Manage Stakeholders’ under Essentials on the left-hand navigation menu.

2. Stakeholders who are employees will have a new menu item “View employee Compensation” under the three-dot menu

3. This will open the “Compensation” tab for the employee, which will display:

       a. A summary of salary and equity compensation 

       b. Market targets for the individual as set by the Compensation Plan in Carta Total Compensation 

Questions? 

If you have any questions, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

Carta Total Compensation users can now use the New Hire Equity Forecast calculator to proactively allocate equity for anticipated headcount in the upcoming months. 

How do I access it? 

You can access the New Hire Equity Forecast calculator, along with any other Carta Total Comp report, from either:

• The top of your Reports page in Carta Total Compensation
• The Total Compensation folder within the Equity Reporting section in Carta

See a quick video on accessing compensation reports here. 

Questions? 

If you have any questions about the new report, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

We have three new updates included as a part of this benchmark version:

• Quarterly benchmark refresh 
• New Life Sciences industry benchmarks 
• Peer group updates

Quarterly benchmark refresh

We have updated salary, total cash compensation, and equity benchmarks for all job areas and specializations. 

Market Trends

Salary and total cash compensation benchmarks are generally flat since our last update. These trends are fairly consistent across company valuation and level. As in previous updates, specialization level data continues to be more volatile than the broader sample, as sample sizes for these roles are smaller than job area-level data. 

Equity benchmarks have decreased approximately 1%, less than last quarter’s 9%. Equity benchmarks have been decreasing steadily since the beginning of the year, and it’s possible that the market is starting to stabilize close to a “new normal”. We did observe larger decreases, however, among later stage companies indicating that these companies (similar to public companies earlier in 2023) are focused on managing dilution in the face of falling valuations

What were the largest areas of movement from these benchmarks?

Salary - Project Management roles saw the largest increase this quarter (+5%), balancing out the larger decrease that this job area saw last quarter. Notably our AI/ML engineering benchmarks increased by approximately 3%. IT and Legal salary benchmarks decreased by 3% versus last quarter. All other job areas saw salary changes that were within 2% of last quarter’s benchmarks.

Equity - Human Resources and Finance roles saw the largest decreases. Some job areas and specializations did see overall increases to equity benchmarks this quarter, such as Sales Development, Sales/Solutions Engineering, and Art and Graphic Design. Most other job areas changed by 3% or less versus last quarter though there can be variance by level and valuation peer group.

Life Sciences industry benchmarks 

We have released initial benchmarks for three new specializations specific to the Life Sciences industry:

• Scientist
• Research Associate
• Lab Operations

Benchmarks for these roles were developed based on employee data taken exclusively from the Life Sciences companies in our database, making these benchmarks our first industry specific benchmarks. These benchmarks are reflective of the geographic distribution of Life Sciences talent, with markets like Boston, San Diego, Seattle, and Los Angeles joining San Francisco and New York as the top labor markets for these roles.

Peer group updates

Finally, in an effort to increase the overall quality of our benchmarks, we will no longer provide data for the Below $1M valuation peer group. Variability of pay within that group tended to be high, and many of our benchmarks were less relevant for companies at such an early stage. Any customers with Plans set to use the Below $1M will automatically default to the $1M - $10M peer group after updating to the latest benchmark version.

How do I update my benchmark version?

You can also preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

Here you will have the opportunity to preview the new plan with the updated benchmarks version and assess their impact on your Scorecard before accepting the new plan.

How do I see benchmarks for the new Life Sciences industry specializations?

You can view benchmarks for the new specializations by:

1. Visiting the Benchmarks page and selecting “Research” under Area. Once the job area is selected, you can select “Life Sciences” from the Industry dropdown and any of the new specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

2. This will allow you to view salary/equity benchmarks for levels 1-3 for Research Associate, levels 4-6 for Scientist, and levels 1-5 for Lab Operations

Questions?

If you have any questions about these new benchmarks or if you have suggestions for additional Life Sciences specific data, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

You can now use the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator to automatically calculate the impact on your option pool from three different types of equity grants:

• Refresh / Tenure grants – For employees eligible for a tenure grant, use the calculator to forecast the equity grants they should be awarded based on their start date 
• Promotion grants – For employees eligible for a promotion, use the calculator to forecast how many grants they should be awarded based on their start date or their next level’s benchmarks 
• True-up grants – For employees compensated under the market rate, you can view the size of a grant to bring them up to the market rate, and optionally include it within the equity pool burn

With these grants incorporated into your calculations, you can more accurately model your equity pool’s burn over the coming year to make informed decisions around strategies for your compensation program.

How do I access the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator?

You can access the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator, along with any other Carta Total Comp reports, from either:

• The top of your Scorecard page in Carta Total Compensation
• The Total Compensation folder within the Equity Reporting section in Carta

If you want to have access or want to schedule a demo to understand what you can unlock with the calculator and Carta Total Comp, reach out to your CSM.

What’s next?

We are planning a few additional enhancements to improve ease of use of the Equity Forecasting and Burn Calculator:

• Clear descriptions on how to use each tab
• Incorporation of planned exits / attrition assumptions
• Incorporation of suggested quantities to reach certain targets

This calculator is also a living and growing tool – and so any feedback you have will be appreciated. You can either provide it via reports-feedback@carta.com, through your CSM, or directly within Carta Total Compensation after downloading the calculator. Your feedback will help us improve this and other reports to fit your needs.

What’s new?

Carta Total Comp has two new data updates: New specializations and updates to our international data. 

Our benchmarks now support three new specializations in the Sales job area: 

• Account Executive
• Sales Development Representative
• Sales/Solutions Engineering

Note: Our sample size for new specializations can be smaller than job area benchmarks, which could result in data volatility as we continue to update the data and grow our overall sample size. 

Additionally, we have updated international market adjustments and the six-month rolling exchange rates that are used to convert USD to international currencies. These new adjustments and exchange rates are live for all Carta Total Compensation customers. Note that in the following countries, salary and/or equity adjustments have changed by 10% or more: India, Brazil, Ukraine, Hungary, Mexico, Armenia, Estonia, and United Arab Emirates. 

How do I see benchmarks for the new specializations?

You can view benchmarks for the new specializations by:

1. Visiting the Benchmarks page and selecting “Sales” under Area. Once the job area is selected, you can select any of the new specializations by selecting the Specialization dropdown.

2. This will allow you to view salary/equity benchmarks for levels 1 - 8 for Sales/Solutions Engineering. For Account Executive and Sales Development Representative, data are available for levels 1-6.

3. The above process can be followed for each of the new specializations.

How do benchmarks for the additional specializations affect the Employee Scorecard?

The compa-ratio is a quick way to compare an employee's compensation to your plan's target rate for a given job area, level, and location. The compa-ratios for an employee assigned to the new Sales specializations will now be calculated using the target compensation for the specialization, not the job area.

How do I update my benchmark version to use new specializations?

You can update your compensation plan to use the latest benchmark versions either by visiting the Plan page and clicking on the "Update available" link in the Active Plan window.

You can also preview the new benchmarks on your Scorecard by navigating to the Benchmarks page and clicking on the "Preview benchmarks" bubble in the top left.

Here you will have the opportunity to preview the new plan with the updated benchmarks version and assess their impact on your Scorecard before accepting the new plan.

How do I see new international market adjustments? 

1. To see new international market adjustments, navigate to the Plan tab and scroll down to International Market Adjustment.

2. Market adjustments will automatically be updated. You can customize any adjustments by using the Edit button on the right.

What’s next?

The Carta Total Compensation team is working on our Q3 benchmark refresh for all job areas and specializations

What’s new?

Starting today, customers can export data from the Benchmarks page as a CSV file to use in their compensation analyses outside of Carta Total Compensation. The feature is active for all Carta Total Compensation customers and can be accessed from the Benchmarks page.

How do I access it? 

1. Navigate to the Benchmarks page in Carta Total Compensation. 

2. Choose the specific filters for the data you’d like to export, including the Location, Area, Specialization, Track, and compensation type. 

3. Click the “Export” button that appears under the filters. 

What’s next?

Carta Total Compensation is developing benchmarks for new specializations.

Questions?

If you have any questions about how to export Benchmarks data or if you have suggestions for additional export functionality, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

In Carta Total Compensation, you can now use a simple guide to: 

1. Assign Job Titles easily to any employee who is missing one, and 
2. Level multiple employees at once by assigning a Level to a Job Title

With fully leveled employees, you can leverage the power and insights of all Total Comp features, including Reports and Employee Scorecard. This feature eases that process by simplifying what employees need attention.

What do I need to do? 

If you already have Total Compensation set up, you will see a banner at the top of your Total Comp page that will take you directly to a new flow.

As you’re assigning Levels to Job Titles, check out our leveling guide for guidance.

If you’re setting up Carta Total Compensation for the first time, use the new onboarding flow to level the employees pulled in from your HRIS (Human Resource Information System).

Questions?

If you have any questions about leveling your employees, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

What’s new?

We’ve redesigned the Bands page to make it easier to search for and view the compensation benchmarks you need. The new user experience is active for all Carta Total Compensation customers and can be accessed here.

There are 3 main changes:

1. Role and location filters can now be found at the top of the page, rather than along the left-side of the page.

2. You can view benchmarks for different compensation categories using the new buttons on the top of the page.

The new “All data” view allows you to see salary, total cash, and equity benchmarks all at the same time. Once selected, you can choose the exact benchmarks that you’d like to see side-by-side.

3. Our visualization is now hidden by default to help you get to the data you need quickly. However, you can always view it by clicking the “Show visualization” button above the benchmarks table.

What’s next?

We’ll be adding export functionality to the Bands page to allow customers to download Carta Total Compensation data as a spreadsheet.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the new look of the Bands page please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.