How to build a defensible range across hybrid, regional, and national talent.
Compensation benchmarking broke when 'remote' stopped meaning one thing. A national-remote role, a regional-remote role, and a three-day hybrid role draw from different talent pools with different price floors.
Start by defining your pool, not your policy. Ask where the candidates who can actually do this job live, and price against that geography rather than against your headquarters.
Build a range with three anchors: the local hybrid market, the regional market within commuting distance of a hub, and the national market for fully remote work. Where those diverge sharply, decide explicitly which pool you are hiring from and state it in the posting.
Publish the band. Candidates increasingly disqualify employers who withhold ranges, and internally a written band prevents the drift that creates pay-equity liabilities two years later.
Re-benchmark twice a year, not annually. Markets moved faster than annual cycles could track, and stale bands are the most common reason offers get declined at the final stage.