Pay Raises Announced; Benefit Survey on the Way

A message from Paula Pittman, vice president of human resources

In Steve Goeser’s Sept. 15 leadership update, he shared that employees across Methodist provided considerable feedback on the topic of compensation and benefits in our recent employee engagement survey.

First and foremost, I want you to know that we hear you. As an organization, we strive to deliver The Meaning of Care to not only our patients and their families but also each of you. We understand that competitive compensation and benefit packages are an expectation of our employees in exchange for the value they provide to the system and its stakeholders.

I’m happy to share that Methodist employees will be receiving a pay increase, effective Oct. 16 and reflected on your Nov. 4 paycheck. 

Next Steps

Managers/leadership will be receiving spreadsheets with more detailed salary/pay information for each employee in their area this week.  

• Mid-October: Final approval on increases will be completed.
• Oct. 20: Employees will receive notification of their increase.
• Oct. 27: Information will be accessible in Lawson.
• Nov. 4: The increase will be reflected on your paycheck.

Benefits Survey Coming

Although top of mind for employees, compensation is just one component of what we call our Total Rewards. This employment package is the combination of benefits, compensation, incentive pay and other rewards that employees receive. We strive to provide benefits that are competitive with what many employers in our communities offer, including insurance, PTO, incentives, employer/match retirement and bonuses.

As the world around us continues to evolve, the expectation of diverse and competitive benefits has become more important than ever. We want to align our total rewards structure with what’s most valuable to our employees. In 2023, we’ll be conducting a total rewards optimization survey to glean feedback from you in this area. We want to know what you value most – pay, health benefits, PTO, retirement dollars, etc. Look for more information on this opportunity to share your thoughts and recommendations.

How Do We Calculate Pay Raises?

As a health system, we feel it’s important to provide transparency around how compensation decisions are made. We believe compensation is a key component to both attracting and retaining quality employees; therefore discussions are part of the budget planning work. Salary planning for 2022 actually took place while preparing the budget in 2021. Salaries, wages and benefits make up a large percentage of our operating expenses, so calculating our total investment into our valued employees – including annual percentage increases – takes thoughtful planning and is essential to our financial plans.

We consider a number of factors to determine what the increase should be, such as:

• Reviewing what we’ve done historically
• Collecting data from multiple sources, including local data, wage surveys and third-party providers of wage data
• Evaluating the market rate for relevant positions
• Examining the hundreds of job categories that already exist in the organization
• Collecting information from applicants, new hires and outgoing employees as they provide feedback during the hiring and departure process

As you can see, many factors go into setting a general wage increase while also maintaining our ability to meet our financial obligations.

We decided to increase the percentage you’d otherwise receive based on historical trends and this year’s budgeted amount in yet another effort to provide fair and equitable pay. We strive to keep our increases more in line with long-term inflation rates, but the ebb and flow can make that challenging.

Thank You

We thank you for your loyalty, dedication and commitment to providing our communities with extraordinary care. We couldn’t be more proud of all you do, and we want your compensation and benefits to reflect that.