"How many jobs do we need? Which should be full-time, part-time, or contractor? And how do we pay people fairly and equitably?"
Organizations wrestle with these questions constantly, and many get them wrong. "Right" looks different for every chamber and association, but the approach is the same.
This article is brought to you by Institute for Organization Management, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s professional development program for nonprofit executives.
1. Start With Strategy
Don't start with jobs, headcount, or pay. Start with your strategy. Are you focused on attracting new members and revenue, or on retaining members and increasing spend per member? The strategy tells you which initiatives are mission-critical for the next year or two and the scope of the work. It also drives the budget, so let it set the guardrails.
2. How Many Jobs Do We Need?
The number of jobs should reflect the work and outcomes the strategy requires. Review your structure annually to decide which jobs, and how many positions, you need. If events generate significant revenue, make sure those job descriptions cover what it takes to sustain them. For a small but growing area, like a new workforce initiative, take a lean, start-up approach: fewer roles focused on essential functions, growing as the initiative grows.
3. Full-Time, Part-Time, or Contractor?
Small-staff organizations often make this call on budget rather than impact. Instead, ask how closely the job's outcomes connect to the strategy. The closer a job sits to a key strategic deliverable, the more likely it belongs inside the organization.
I worked with a 20-person organization that hired a part-time marketing contractor. It fit the budget, but revenue stalled and new memberships dropped because the contractor didn't build the prospect pipeline based on personal relationships that manifested into membership. The organization then created an internal part-time role. Prospects wanted a relationship with someone inside the organization, and bringing marketing in-house smoothed the path to membership. The result: more prospects in the pipeline and, ultimately, more members.
So ask, "What do we need this job to accomplish?" before weighing convenience or a contractor's perceived lower cost.
4. How Much Do We Pay People?
Match your compensation approach to your strategy, whether that's doing the basics well or innovating across multiple revenue streams. Either way:
- Commit to a market-based pay philosophy. Benchmark against chambers and associations similar in size, revenue, and geography.
- Use employer-reported market data. It reflects what organizations actually pay and is typically updated quarterly. Employee-reported data varies widely and is hard to validate.
- Build a pay range for every job. Without ranges, pay decisions drift from leader to leader and year to year. Ranges also build a foundation for pay equity and transparency.
- Set a target pay position for each role. Ask, "If we hire a top performer we want to keep for years, where in the range do we aspire to pay them?" This isn't the starting pay or a cap, and it doesn't mean breaking the budget. It's a barometer that tells you whether pay is attracting, rewarding, and retaining great people, and a goal to move toward over time.
When strategy leads, decisions about jobs and pay stop being guesswork and become fairer, clearer, and easier to defend.
About the author
Jeffrey Nally
Jeff Nally, PCC, SHRM-SCP, is President of Nally Group Inc., where he coaches executives and speaks on change and human interaction in the workplace. He is co-founder of NaviCoach, an AI coaching platform, and faculty for C125: Hiring, Firing, and Everything In Between for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management. He is based in Venice, Florida.
