Q A_OIG_Compensation_Review_Services_RFP.pdf

Q&A

OIG RFP for Compensation Review Services

Vendor question:

Thank you very much for sending along the Compensation Review RFP and for providing us with the opportunity to respond. As we were discussing our approach, we had a follow-up question for you regarding two distinct methodologies and wanted to see if we could get your thoughts before we begin developing the proposal, as each approach has different pros/cons, as well as budget implications.

Specific to the compensation survey data component, there are two approaches that we think could work for your organization, but they vary in time and cost commitment. They include:

1) We could research and purchase market salary data from existing published sources

a. Pros: This analysis can be completed quickly, it is less expensive, it provides the ability to gain more insight into entire competitive market and not just OIG organizations, and there is greater validity of market data due to large sample size

b. Cons: Because we’d be looking at broader market survey data, the information would not focus solely on OIGs and we may not be able to provide as direct a comparison to your specific OIG organization

2) We create and administer a custom salary survey and distribute to a very select number of organizations, including other OIGs and similar organizations, which is more aligned with the approach we discussed with you on the phone

a. Pros: This would enable us to provide a targeted look at OIG salaries only

b. Cons: Because we would be dependent upon other OIG’s to respond to the survey, we could potentially have issues with getting a minimum number of participants. If we are not able to get at least 10 other OIGs to participate, we may run into issues with validity. This method would require a longer time commitment to allow for survey responses (but could still be completed in 2-3 months) and would be more costly given the creation of a survey and communication materials. Also, for this to be successful, we typically rely heavily on existing client contacts for this type of effort (i.e., having you reach out to other OIG offices to ask for their participation and we would do the same with our OIG contacts) and we would “cold call” or email participants as well.

While these are the 2 primary methodologies we’ve used previously for compensation analyses, there is definitely the option of combining both approaches to get a really robust compensation analysis. The other aspects of our approach (e.g., job analysis, benefits benchmarking, findings, recommendations) would generally be the same regardless of which compensation data source you prefer.

If you had a clear preference between those two options, we can target our proposal in one direction or another, or we could provide the costs and timelines for both for you to weigh each against the other. Alternatively, if you were able to share your target budget for the project, we could independently try to come up with an approach that gets you the best value for your budget and focus our proposal on that solution.

Thank you for being willing to consider questions and please let us know if you’d rather discuss this via phone as opposed to email.

OIG Response:

Project approach is an evaluation criteria so we are not comfortable guiding you one way or the other, as this might give you an advantage over other vendors competing. Our suggestion would be to submit one proposal with three options: the two you are mentioning and a third with a hybrid approach.