How HolidayPirates Built Transparent, Data-Backed Salary Bands with Figures

Introduction

HolidayPirates, a leading travel deals platform based in Berlin, wanted to bring structure, fairness, and transparency to its compensation practices. But without access to reliable benchmarking data, progress was slow and discussions were often based on guesswork.

We spoke with Teresa Pau, Team Lead Human Resources at HolidayPirates, who shared how Figures helped them transform their approach to salary bands, and how the collaboration with their employee representative group made it a true company-wide achievement.

Without reliable benchmarks, compensation decisions lacked structure and consistency

Before adopting Figures, HolidayPirates was already committed to fair compensation, but implementing that vision proved difficult without access to reliable market benchmarks. The HR team, working closely with the company’s employee representative group, relied on publicly available sources that were often outdated or irrelevant to their context.

“We had to search free websites without knowing if the numbers were even relevant to us,” says Teresa Pau, Team Lead Human Resources at HolidayPirates.

This made the process of designing salary bands inefficient and uncertain. Employee representatives and HR would spend significant time trying to interpret or validate salary data. Without a trustworthy source, conversations about fairness turned into prolonged debates, and creating alignment across stakeholders, HR, executive leadership, and employee reps, became a challenge in itself.

“The lack of reliable and on-time data led to open negotiations and discussions,” Teresa explains. “Everyone was trying their best, but we didn’t have a shared source of truth.”

As a result, salary reviews took longer than necessary, and compensation decisions lacked the structure and credibility needed for a growing company operating in multiple markets.

Figures enabled a collaborative, data-led approach to salary bands

To resolve these challenges, HolidayPirates implemented Figures and took a collaborative approach to using it. HR brought together a working group that included executive stakeholders and members of the employee representative group, elected by employees, to lead the development of salary bands. Importantly, everyone involved was given direct access to the Figures platform, ensuring transparency from the start.

“We gave our employee representatives recruiter access to Figures so they could see the data themselves,” Teresa says. “That helped build trust and alignment right away.”

Together, the group worked to map HolidayPirates’ internal roles to those in the Figures database. They adjusted and created custom roles as needed and used the platform to define salary bands based on market benchmarks and their own compensation strategy. Because the data was specific to their geography, industry, and company size, the team was able to move with confidence.

“Once we agreed on the roles and calculations, building the bands with Figures was fast and straightforward.”

The salary bands were then formally introduced at an all-hands meeting and published in the company’s internal wiki. Today, they are shared openly with all employees, including new hires during onboarding, and cover every level from Junior to Team Lead.

This process not only provided structure and speed, it reinforced HolidayPirates’ core values.

“One of our company values is openness and authenticity,” Teresa adds. “Being transparent with salary bands felt like a natural step.”

With Figures, compensation conversations became clearer, fairer, and more strategic

Figures didn’t just bring speed to salary reviews, it fundamentally changed how compensation is discussed and understood across the company. With a shared, structured framework in place, the HR team can now focus on strategic decision-making rather than chasing down data. Managers are better equipped to have informed, consistent conversations with their teams. And employees feel more confident that compensation decisions are fair and grounded in real benchmarks.

“Figures helps us spot gaps, support fair decisions, and build trust, it’s more than a benchmarking tool,” Teresa says.

The platform’s visual insights make it easy to identify pay gaps or inconsistencies and track whether internal compensation remains aligned with the external market. Figures also allows HolidayPirates to plan ahead as compensation-related regulations evolve in the EU and beyond.

“I don’t know how a company can prepare for the salary transparency directives without Figures,” Teresa notes. “It provides the objective criteria you need to create bands, share them internally, and build a policy that’s fair and defensible.”

Ultimately, Figures has helped HolidayPirates turn compensation into a strength, one that reflects their values, builds trust, and supports long-term growth.

“It’s an investment worth making,” Teresa concludes. “You get reliable insight into your position in the market, plus the tools to act on it in a way that really matters to your people.”