Employee salary surveys are conducted by organizations to determine the latest trends in salary and compensation. This is very useful, since companies can set their own salaries on the basis of these results. This would enable the company to attract as well as retain the most talented people in the industry.

Companies as such do not undertake comprehensive salary surveys. They use the survey results of special organizations that conduct these surveys. There are many organizations that provide professional employee salary survey services. These companies not only offer salary structures for different kinds of jobs, but also provide additional information services like cost-of-living comparisons, employee relocation allowances, geographic reference reports, compensation reports, job analysis reports, salary structure analysis and so on. Specific salary reports such as executive compensation, non-profit executive salaries, charity executive salaries, college graduate salaries, salary increase reports, are also accessible.

Globalization has made the employee salary surveys even more significant, as the salary trends in different parts of the world have to be analyzed to arrive at the right figures. Some salary survey consultants even provide salary comparisons for over 1,000,000 jobs in around 200 countries. The reports are also categorized on the basis of the industry. These companies use highly reliable international data and sophisticated statistical techniques in these employee salary survey reports.

Another kind of employee salary survey is the personal salary report that determines whether a person is getting the right kind of salary for the job he/she is doing, and experience and education level. Salary comparisons to check with the current competitive labor market rates can also be done. Most of these tools are also available online and can be purchased at exclusive websites. The software needs a minimum system configuration of 32 MB RAM and a 150 MHz processor speed.