7
Corporation) and mid-sized commercial entities, in addition to the commercial broadcasters. Mid-sized companies and statutory bodies were also surveyed to determine appropriate compensation levels for accounting, systems, and other professional staff.
2.4.3 The weighting assigned to any benchmarked organisation depends on its reliability as an industry standard - i.e., its compensation structure must be neither too high nor low,
and it must be fairly consistent overall. For example, some creative positions in commercial television broadcasters have offered unusually high pay levels as an
"emerging" company lured staff away from an established competitor.
2.5 The second step was to identify the closest counterpart positions. Because job titles alone are often misleading, positions must be matched based on the actual
job content, responsibilities, and skills required. The job descriptions developed for the 53 RTHKC positions (see Appendix A) provide a solid foundation for comparison with counterpart positions. For instance, RTHKC's Director - TV, who has only minor programme scheduling or marketing responsibility, is most comparable not to TVB's Assistant General Manager - Production but to its Production Controller. And RTHKC's
Production Services Controller is analogous to TVB's Production Services Manager/Coordinator.
2.6.1 The third step involved adjusting compensation levels to reflect RTHKC's unique conditions. Again, take the example of RTHKC's Director - TV: this person operates a "production house" only a fraction of the size of that run by TVB's Production Controller. RTHKC's Director - Radio, meanwhile, leads a multi-channel
business with higher output hours than Commercial Radio, but unlike the General Manager
of Commercial Radio has less marketing, less rating, and no overall profit and loss
responsibilities. Also, RTHKC should have higher-calibre managers for its English- language channels, and to some extent Chinese-language channels, than Commercial Radio as it is expected to meet higher quality standards.
2.6.2 Another key difference between RTHKC and the benchmarked companies is that its
compensation levels are largely limited by subvention guidelines to no more than equivalent
civil service pay. On the other hand, RTHKC may offer a more attractive working environment thanks to its greater management stability and wider creative latitude.
McKinsey & Company, Inc.