Fair Compensation: How to Build Trust & Retain Top Talent

Fair compensation isn’t just about offering the highest salaries in the market, which is rare for most companies anyway.

It encompasses working conditions and benefits that go beyond the basics. You know the offering of a two-day weekend, along with social and medical insurance. This isn’t considered fair compensation anymore. It’s the absolute basic. Employees expect this, while talent calibers expect more.

As organizations strive to attract and retain top talent, they need to define, or rather redefine, what fair compensation is. After all, fair pay can be the difference between staying ahead by enhancing employee retention, and falling behind and losing top performers.

“Pay” remains the “most commonly cited reason employees join and stay with an employer,” according to the 2024 Pay Effectiveness and Design Survey by WTW. In addition, nearly 56% of employees say they would switch employers for “better pay.”

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the situation is no different.

Research shows 65% of men and 50% of women “have switched jobs in pursuit of better compensation or career growth.”

Despite this, companies often struggle with creating clear salary structures, while few update their compensation and benefits strategy to match market growth, needs, and evolving business needs and employee skills.

In this article, we’ll focus on fair compensation, its core pillars, its importance in the recruitment and retention landscape, and how to provide fair pay through salary surveys.

Let’s dive in.

The 6 Pillars of Fair Compensation

According to the WTW report, the 6 core “objectives” of a pay program, or compensation and benefit strategy, are:

Attracting top talent
Increasing employee retention
Promoting fair compensation among employees in a company
Promoting competitive compensation compared to employees at other organizations.
Aligning team members with the business strategy
Reward employees for their performance in a year

The report found “about half of employers” saying they are “effective at two of these objectives.” Meanwhile, fewer than half of employers say they are effective “at each of the other four.”

Why Does Fair Compensation Matter More Than Ever for Businesses?

Fair compensation contributes to a variety of business aspects and benefits. From building a stronger work culture that relies on fairness, performance, and trust, to improving employee retention, among others.

Here are the top reasons fair compensation benefits a business:

Positively impacts retention & engagement

Employees who feel fairly paid are more likely to stay, perform, and remain committed. PwC research shows 82% say fair pay is “very or extremely important,” while 67% cite job fulfillment, and 59% focus on flexibility.

This makes fair compensation a critical aspect of retention, not just a reward mechanism.

Affects business performance, not just HR metrics

Not only does employee turnover disrupt team stability, but it also slows execution, increases workload on high performers, and reduces engagement and productivity.

While HR can measure the cost of employee turnover, this cost goes beyond the exit of a team member and the hiring of a new one. Various HR metrics and KPIs are negatively impacted by the lack of fair compensation. The compounded impact is harder to measure.

So, when compensation is seen as unfair or out of sync with the market, your credibility as an employer weakens.

Builds trust and bolsters employer branding

Fair, transparent pay practices signal respect and consistency, reinforcing trust between employees and leadership.

This trust translates into stronger employee loyalty, better collaboration, and a more attractive employer brand and value proposition in a competitive talent market.

Cost-effective compared to constant replacement

Replacing an employee can cost between 30% and 200% of their annual salary once recruitment, onboarding, lost productivity, and ramp-up time are considered.

In many cases, adjusting compensation to remain fair and market-aligned is significantly less costly than absorbing repeated turnover.

Why Fair Compensation Fails in Practice?

Many organizations have well-intentioned compensation and benefits strategies, but struggle to keep them aligned with rapidly changing market growth and needs.

Most companies still conduct only 1–2 formal compensation review cycles per year. That said, 97% of HR leaders agree that more frequent reviews would improve retention and fairness. This suggests an execution gap between strategy and practice.

Outdated assumptions & internal biases

When reviews are infrequent or manual processes dominate, pay decisions are often based on historic data or managerial discretion rather than real market signals.

This leads to inconsistent role definitions, pay disparities, and employee frustration. This is even more so when old team members discover new, less experienced employees are joining with higher pay.

Without clear job leveling, workforce planning, and market-based ranges, using salary surveys, similar roles may get different pricing across teams or locations.

This leads to unfair compensation and weakens trust in HR, management, and the company.

Regular, data-backed reviews help mitigate these biases.

Pay decisions are reactive, not data-driven

Recent compensation benchmarking studies found that over half of companies still rely on annual adjustments rather than continuous market calibration.

Roughly 67% of companies conduct annual salary reviews. However, 72% “haven’t changed their habits in terms of review frequency despite the current economic context.”

Pay dissatisfaction is a common exit feedback

One of the top cited reasons for employees leaving a company is pay dissatisfaction, or simply being offered better pay elsewhere.

Roughly 48% of employees mention salaries as a means to attract and retain talent.

How Do Salary Surveys Support Fair Compensation Decisions?

Salary surveys provide an objective, external reference point that helps businesses ensure whether their offered compensation and benefits packages are in line with the market or not.

Instead of relying on internal history, individual negotiations, or assumptions, decision-makers can compare roles against real, up-to-date market data, and define what “fair” looks like in practice.

Salary surveys also reduce bias and guesswork in compensation decisions and negotiations.

Roughly 71% of companies use “external market analysis” or salary surveys to develop salary grades and ranges.

Market data introduces structure, making it easier to justify offers, promotions, and adjustments transparently.

Most importantly, salary surveys support the execution of your compensation strategy.

Studies consistently show that companies with market-aligned pay practices experience higher retention and engagement levels, as employees are more likely to view their compensation as fair and competitive when it reflects external benchmarks rather than internal discretion.

In other words, salary surveys turn fair compensation from an idea into a measurable, repeatable process. One that aligns strategy, market reality, and employee expectations all at once.

What Is Salary Benchmarking? How Does It Differ from Salary Surveys?

Salary benchmarking is the process of comparing your organization’s roles and pay levels against market data to define competitive and fair salary ranges.

A salary survey is the data source, providing market pay information by role, level, industry, and location.
Salary benchmarking is how you use that data, including matching your internal roles to market roles, setting pay ranges, and positioning your organization within the market.

This distinction matters because fair compensation is not achieved by data alone, but by how accurately and consistently that data is applied.

Benchmarking ensures similar roles are priced consistently across departments, seniority levels, and geographies, supporting both internal equity and external competitiveness.

Together, salary surveys and benchmarking form the backbone of data-driven, fair compensation: one provides the market reality, the other translates it into actionable, equitable pay structures.

What Should Companies Look for in a Reliable Salary Survey?

The right salary survey ensures that compensation decisions are grounded in current, relevant, and defensible market data, rather than assumptions or overly broad benchmarks.

When exploring a salary survey, you should look for the following:

Market relevance: Data should reflect your industry, geography, and company size. Generic global averages aren’t realistic and distort what “fair” truly means for your workforce.
Role depth & accurate leveling: A reliable survey provides detailed role definitions, seniority levels, and functional distinctions.
Fresh data & frequent updates: Look for surveys that are updated frequently, preferably every 6 months. An outdated survey is useless, resulting in lagging compensation offerings.
Credibility & methodology: Look for transparent data collection, sufficient sample sizes, and reputable sources. Weak methodology undermines confidence in the results and, ultimately, in pay decisions.
Local and regional coverage: Surveys that combine global structure with regional insight help avoid over- or under-paying in specific markets.

Further reading: 10 Compensation Survey Providers to Help You Stay Competitive

How Does Tawzef Help Companies Offer Fair Compensation through Salary Surveys?

Tawzef provides companies and organizations with up-to-date salary surveys.

Local and regional market insight: Tawzef’s data is tailored to your industry, geography, and role levels.
Practical application for compensation and benefits decisions: Beyond raw data, Tawzef translates survey results into actionable insights. Through our salary survey services, we help companies set salary grades and ranges, adjust existing salaries, and design benefits packages that align with your internal strategy and external market trends.
A long-term partner in fair compensation: Tawzef helps businesses maintain fair pay practices over time. By providing continuous access to reliable market data and guidance, we help you adjust compensation and benefits strategies on an ongoing basis. This helps you improve employee engagement and retention while building trust in fair pay.

Learn more about Tawzef’s salary survey offerings.

Stand Out as a Fair Employer: Use Salary Surveys Today

Fair compensation is the foundation of a high-performing, high-trust organization. It’s not just a cost center. It’s critical for attracting top talent, boosting retention, and improving overall business performance.

While challenges like outdated practices and internal biases can undermine fairness, the solution lies in adopting a data-driven approach.

By leveraging reliable salary surveys and rigorous salary benchmarking, companies can transform fair compensation from an abstract idea into a measurable, consistent, and competitive strategy.

This ensures pay practices align with market reality, building enduring employee trust and solidifying the company's brand as an employer of choice.

Design competitive packages that keep talented employees longer at your company. Get in touch with Tawzef to get 2026’s salary surveys by country, industry, and job type.

Fair Compensation: How to Build Trust & Retain Top Talent in 2026