Project case study
Love’s Wage Analysis
At Love’s, I saw employees carrying more responsibility for less pay than nearby employers. I researched 85 local companies and made the case to regional leadership for a $1.50 starting-wage increase. Broader district increases followed.
My role: I led the wage research, wrote the recommendation and presented the case to the regional vice president during our business review.
Watch the interactive walkthroughHow it works
Define comparable roles
The comparison starts with similar responsibilities.
The reconstruction groups roles by job scope before comparing rates. It illustrates a transparent comparison rather than claiming the original report used this exact process.
Separate the sources
Posted pay and estimates are identified separately.
This reconstruction labels source types and separates base wages from tips or delivery compensation. All displayed sources and rates are fictional.
Compare the market
A transparent table replaces an unexplained headline average.
The illustration uses its displayed comparison group. It does not reproduce internal figures or the original report’s headline averages.
Make the recommendation
The findings become a concrete business proposal.
The report connects comparable roles and pay evidence to a proposed baseline. The later decision is recorded separately from the proposal itself.
Make the case with evidence people can use.
Working alongside the team made the problem clear to me: our expectations and our pay were out of step with the local market. Leadership was concerned that increasing starting pay would create pressure elsewhere. I brought wage evidence and comparisons of job responsibilities into a two-hour business-review conversation with the regional vice president.
- Focus
- Market research, source comparison and decision communication
- Decision
- Wage increases approved following the business review; roughly 100 employees affected across the district.
How it works
The research combined local wage postings, estimates and role comparisons in a written business recommendation. The portfolio chart is a fictional reconstruction, with source types and comparison groups made explicit rather than copying internal pay records.
What I would improve
The original research mixed postings, estimates and different kinds of compensation. I would make those categories more explicit in a fresh analysis. The public reconstruction does that separation without exposing the internal report or treating an unexplained average as the result.
Outcome
Following the business review, leadership approved wage increases across parts of the district. I remember the decision coming a week or two after the conversation. The broader increases affected roughly 100 employees, with adjustments varying by employee.
Turnover was above 200% the previous summer and around 75% the following year. Pay was part of the story; I would not attribute the entire change to this analysis alone.