Not every church leader is familiar with HR terms and concepts. ChurchSalary is here to help.
Summary
Salaries are distributed across a range. This salary range is measured and reported using quartiles or percentiles. The range between these data points can be calculated as a salary spread (e.g., 50 percent). After performing market research utilizing resources like ChurchSalary, your church can calculate a new salary range using a localized or adjusted midpoint and an industry-standard human resources (HR) formula.
What is a salary range?
Salaries in the real world, when sampled within different professions, fall along a continuum. When plotted, their range (or distribution) looks like a bell curve. Some salaries will be higher than the midpoint and some will be lower; however, the majority of salaries will be clustered together in the middle. This is called a normal distribution and is shaped like a bell—hence the name.
Salary distribution is reported using several data points. Every ChurchSalary report quantifies this range using the first quartile, median, and third quartile. Some reports also provide the 10th and 90th percentile numbers, but these are not as useful in church settings for reasons we’ll discuss below.
