[derekp7]

The best I've seen is having a salary range for each grade level. At a large company I worked at during the late 90's to mid 2000's, I was hired in as an "E5". Raises above and beyond cost of living increases would be based on exceeding performance goals for that grade level. You would then move up in that grade level's range (which gets adjusted every year based on inflation). That in turn would be an indicator of those that need a promotion into the next grade level / salary range (and the promotion pay increase is independent of the cost of living / merit increase). In my case I went from an E5 up through and E7, then the company outsourced us (was a re-badging, all employees affected were hired by the outsourcer).

From what I remember this company had something like 20 different E levels, going all the way up to what would cover the C levels. And each job category had specifics that were required to move into a given level. For example an E5 would be basic systems administration, E6 would include scripting/programming, something like an E8 would include architecture type roles.

It really surprises me that more companies don't do this. Really helps with transparency, and when you hire someone you pick which grade level they get initially placed in (so there could be a group of job reqs that cover multiple grade ranges, and the new-hire gets slotted based on how they interviewed).