<aside> 💡 Each role level at Apolitical has a salary band. To ensure our salaries reflect market rates and that we reward team members fairly, we reevaluate our pay bands using best practice tools and processes on a bi-annual cadence (they don’t typically change more often than this).

Our goal is to create an environment where you feel empowered and rewarded for your work. Apolitical offers market-competitive salaries by benchmarking against other Series A companies in London. If at any point you disagree with your salary, please speak to your manager or the People team.

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Pay Determination

Our approach to determining individual salary compensation is multi-faceted:

1. Role Level: Each role has salary bands that we determine using the process below. Your level in the role determines which band you are in. We compensate based on performance within your role level, which includes the combination of skills and behaviours outlined in Progression & Frameworks.
2. Progression: Every six months, we review each employee's compensation to ensure it aligns with the current market rate. Additionally, during Development Reviews, we assess whether your skills and behaviours are fairly placed within your pay band.
3. Employee Input: We encourage you to come to us if you think you should be paid differently.

For 54% of companies, only HR and finance have full access to employee pay bands, and only 10% of companies openly publish pay bands for all job levels, according to Lattice’s 2023 State of People Strategy report.

1. Role Level - Salary Band Benchmarking

We use Figures, a dynamic source of live market data about salaries in organisations across Europe to benchmark our salary bands. This allows us to adapt to the ever-changing business landscape and ensure that your contributions are recognised fairly and consistently, as it takes into consideration factors like the cost of living, inflation rates, and market salary trends. Figures also allows us to combine several roles from the market into one, helping to accurately capture some of the unique roles we have at Apolitical and compensate based on a role’s skills and responsibilities rather than simply matching internal with external salaries.

When we set Apolitical salary bands, we first benchmark against the 50th percentile (i.e. median) for a similar role at Series A organisation in London. Salary bands are then created by setting a plus/minus 10% width i.e. adding/subtracting 10% on either side of the median salary for the role. While we work toward achieving profitability, this approach helps us stay competitive and fair, while also maintaining fiscal responsibility.

2. Progression - Pay Rises

<aside> 📌 Our goal is to ensure every employee is paid a fair, market rate salary that reflects their level of competency in their role (i.e. mastery of the skills and behaviours required). We’ve written this guide to explain how we determine salaries once you and your manager have completed your Lattice development reviews.

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How often

We conduct formal salary reviews every six months, using data from your development review to map your progression in the skills and behaviours of your role to your placement on your progression framework (i.e. within your salary band).

Who’s responsible

The People team lead on salary reviews to remove the onus of negotiation from team members. We believe this approach promotes inclusive and fair pay across the organisation, particularly as those of us from underrepresented communities statistically negotiate less.

How we calculate your pay