About Us

Who We Are

Since 1972, Western Management Group has been an independent global leader in the design, development and conduct of compensation and benefits surveys. Our practice is dedicated towards providing timely, valid and accurate market data to compensation and benefits professionals through the use of state-of-the-art tools and analyses.

We have conducted specialized surveys and studies for over 10,000 global organizations in a wide variety of industries including high technology, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, financial services, retail, consumer products, media and advertising, entertainment, agricultural, and educational institutions.

Recognized for our innovation, rapid response, flexibility, and expertise, we offer a full range of surveys for companies seeking the best information available for developing and managing employee compensation in an ever-changing marketplace.

WMG's Corporate Headquarters is located in Los Gatos, California.  We regularly conduct surveys that cover North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, and perform projects on a global basis as well.

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Data Protection

At Western Management Group we take very seriously our responsibility regarding the integrity and confidentiality of the data provided to us.  All data received by WMG is safeguarded in accord with the highest professional standards.  All individual and employer-specific data for every survey will remain confidential and will not be divulged to any outside party.  Results of our surveys are released only in aggregate form, without individual employer or employee identification.

Similarly, our survey participants have responsibilities as well, in ensuring that the data reports received – which include the aggregated data from other participants – are handled in an equally appropriate manner.  Accordingly, as a condition of participation in any WMG survey, all participants agree to the following data confidentiality agreement:

“By submitting data to this survey, we certify that we are participating for our own internal business purposes ONLY.  The data report(s) provided to us by WMG will not be used for any purpose other than our internal business management, and will not be shared with any third party, including other employers and outside consultants, without the expressed written permission of WMG.

We fully understand that all survey data reports provided by Western Management Group are copyright protected by WMG, and may not be reproduced or shared in any other form without the written permission of Western Management Group.”

Data Confidentiality, Privacy, and Security

Participation in this survey implies agreement to provide employee pay and benefits data to WMG to be used for the production of compensation surveys. The results of said surveys will be released to all participants on a mutual exchange basis, providing that the normal data privacy, confidentiality, and security provisions are met. WMG does not collect personally-identifiable information for our surveys (such as Employee ID, Social Security, name, phone numbers, eMail, credit card, etc.), and has a number of safeguards in effect to protect the confidentiality of the company and employee data:

  • No company or individual employee identification will be associated with any data or reports generated from the database, except a participant's own data presented to them in the reports.
  • All reports and data presentations are available in "aggregate" form only and display summary information only.
  • To ensure confidentiality, reports will NOT be produced for any participant unless the following criteria are met:
    • Report requests should contain a minimum of five or more survey participants, in addition to the requester.
    • No reports on individual jobs will be produced in which data from any single participant (other than the requester) represents over 25% of the total data in a given job OR if there are less than five companies (including your own) reporting data on a given job.
With regards to GDPR, we continually follow and monitor the best practices of data collection, handling, storage, and security to ensure that we are in full compliance with this and similar regulations. Please contact us directly for the latest copy of our GDPR, privacy, and data protection policy.

Western Management Group conducts a variety of surveys. Each is designed to uniquely cover a particular industry, function, and/or geography. Nevertheless, in some cases there is overlap of specific jobs over two or more WMG surveys.

When there are identical job descriptions in two or more surveys, WMG shares the data submitted on those jobs between the surveys. In this way we’re able to maximize the data coverage, and present the most robust possible reflection of the true labor market.

Therefore, on some jobs, the data participants submit to a specific WMG survey may be reported back in two or more WMG surveys that year.

If you have any questions regarding our data-sharing policy and procedure, please feel free to contact us.

At no time is any of the information provided by participants to our surveys shared, stored, or handled by any third parties.

Participation Agreements

As a matter of policy, WMG does not allow access to survey data to non-survey participants.  Our surveys are data exchanges between willing participants, and we do not engage in any "after market" sale of reports.

However, we do understand that sometimes an employer who sincerely desires and plans to participate in a given survey has an urgent need for survey data, and would strongly prefer not to wait until the completion of the survey cycle to access reports.  In such circumstances, we offer a Participation Agreement.

With a Participation Agreement, you sign a commitment to be a full-fledged participant in the next cycle of a given survey, and provide a non-refundable deposit toward that survey's report access fee.  With that, you are provided immediate access to the currently-available survey report database.  To be fair to the survey's current participants -- who are not being given access to your data, though you're getting access to theirs -- the Participation Agreement report is at a 50% premium price, plus a 50% deposit on your participation in the next survey cycle.

For example, if the current survey fee is $1,000 for participants, as a non-participant, you would pay $1,500 for access to that survey, plus a $500 deposit on the next survey cycle in which you agree to participate. Your immediate, out-of-pocket cost is $2,000, but the $500 deposit will be applied to your fee for the next survey cycle. If you do not participate in that survey cycle, your deposit is forfeited.

Please feel free to contact us for specific prices and details regarding a Participation Agreement for any of our current surveys, at +1 408 399 4900.