Balancing Regional Fairness and Cross-Border Equity

Challenge

A global retail company needed to modernize its pay scale for a specific category of employees across all Canadian provinces, while also ensuring internal fairness with its U.S. operations. The challenge lay in balancing multiple variables:

• Varying minimum wages
• Differing costs of living across provinces
• Cross-border equity in compensation strategy

Designing a structure that was both regionally fair and globally aligned required advanced modeling and high-level strategic insight.

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Solution

Developed a custom decision-support tool that aggregated regional salary benchmarks, cost-of-living indices, minimum wage thresholds, and internal compensation data. The solution empowered management to:

• Simulate multiple pay scale scenarios
• Analyze impacts by region and employee group
• Ensure both provincial equity and international consistency

This advanced modeling enabled decision-makers to move forward with confidence, backed by data.

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Results

• A fair and transparent pay structure was implemented across all Canadian provinces
• Management expressed high confidence in the decision due to scenario testing
• The tool helped bridge equity gaps between Canada and U.S. operations
• Received positive feedback from both employees and senior leadership, reinforcing trust in the organization’s compensation strategy