Benchmarking Clinical Research Coordinator Salaries

SCRS’s Karri Venn takes a deep dive into the current state of clinical research coordinator salaries with Stacie Merritt, Director at Ascension St. John Clinical Research Institute. We analyze compensation trends, including salary ranges and bonuses, and how organizations can remain competitive in a rapidly evolving job market. Learn how sites of all sizes and types are compensating their workforce and the key factors influencing coordinator pay. Don’t miss this essential conversation packed with data-driven insights to help your site refine its compensation strategy, improve staff retention, and stay ahead in a competitive workforce landscape. 

Transcript

Karri Venn: 0:00

Welcome to SCRS Talks, hosted by the Society for Clinical Research Sites. Thanks for joining us as we explore the latest insights, trends, and innovations shaping clinical research today. I'm Karri Venn, Vice President of Site Advocacy and Mentorship with SCRS. Today, I'm joined by Stacie Merritt, Director of the Clinical Research Institute at Ascension St. John, as we share results from a recent Clinical Research Coordinator Salary Analysis SCRS conducted. First, Stacie, I'd love to have you introduce yourself for our listeners.

Stacie Merritt: 0:29

Thank you for joining us today. Again, my name is Stacie Merritt. I am the director of the Ascension St. John Clinical Research Institute in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are a hospital based institution. We conduct clinical trials in virtually every service line that the hospital has to offer, and I'm glad to be here.

Karri Venn: 0:46

Awesome. so SCRS conducted a survey amongst site owners. It really came up through our payment initiative stream, and there was a lot of conversation about, the raised salaries for CRCs over the last few years, and we really wanted to kind of educate the sites more to help them with retention strategy, maybe if they were underpaying their CRCs that they knew kind of how they were compared to others and as well to also educate our sponsors and CROs so that they understood the significant impact of the salary changes across the U. S. We started with the U. S. and we said, okay, how do we do this? There's lots of positions. And we felt that we would start just simply with the CRCs. And that's kind of the question that went out to the owner's operators. We also restricted it to them to ensure that we had some good clean data. You know, those that engage with their HR department to share the data. And or the owner operators themselves. So we looked at salary ranges. We also asked questions about bonuses and merit increases by site type by location by experience and designation. On average, we saw that salaries ranged from 53, 000 to about 82, 000. But this varied pretty significantly based on several factors, for example, hospitals having the highest salary ranges. We weren't really, surprised by that. While, freestanding and rural sites reported the lowest. Again, something that we weren't completely surprised by. We also want to note that this data aligned very closely with available data on salary. com, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor. We had about, you know, caveat hundred of the owner operators provide this intel to us. So we had to take some information with a grain of salt. But we did want to, let's say compare it to what's out there on the public domain. And that's kind of the process in which we did and the information we shared. So indeed. Basically came back at the lowest average salary at just about 43, 000, which likely counts for more part time or entry level roles. I personally, historically, when I used to review it, sometimes the positions didn't quite match up with the roles that we were running. So, SCRS felt it was important to really go out to the owner operators. We all know what coordinators do and this was more of a comparison with equals, if you will, everyone on the same page. So did anything about the data in general surprise you, Stacie? You know, based on some of the comments I've already put here.

Stacie Merritt: 3:02

One of the things that surprised me was the fact that the ceiling on pay didn't reflect the actual pay that individuals were receiving. For example, hospital salaries range from 75,000 to 121,000 but when you look at the senior level pay, 75, 000. So our ceiling just isn't matching our level of experience.

Karri Venn: 3:28

Any other trends maybe that stood out or felt especially different from what you expected at all?

Stacie Merritt: 3:34

I was not at all surprised that the standalone facilities paid less than the hospitals or academic facilities. I felt like that was right on target. I was a little surprised with the bonuses. For example, site networks, physician practices pay relatively decent bonuses, but there are no hospital bonuses that were identified. The academic facilities also have fewer bonuses.

Karri Venn: 3:59

Yeah, it's interesting about that comment that you raise. I mean, I think in hospitals, sometimes you're at the mercy of the salary ranges of the hospital position, not necessarily the research office that they're compelled to follow and obviously have different rules and regulations regarding types of bonuses. So I think in the independent or private sites, they have a little bit more flexibility and we'll definitely get into the conversation about bonuses. What's right? What's not right? When you're applying them definitely it was surprised to see about 68 percent of the CRCs received a bonus as part of their compensation. So clearly many sites are paying some form of bonus and we'll definitely talk through that element. What I found also interesting with the survey results was there was a significant portion also paying hourly ranges. So it definitely tells me that you know, I think some again, if you're a small independent site, maybe cash flow is always a concern. So to manage the ebbs and flows, are you kind of managing it by just having an hourly rate? From a retention strategy, there's obviously risk to that and coordinators are golden. So how do you manage that? Ideally getting to a contract certainly secures someone's position. But I definitely was surprised at how many were just going the hourly route, if you will. And obviously understanding in the U. S., what's important is beyond just the salary is that contract for which enables health insurance. And so we didn't get into a lot of the specifics outside of the actual salary range beyond bonuses, but I'm sure that also plays an important role in the value or retention of a particular employee. If especially in the U S insurance is covered as part of their whole full contract value. Okay, so then let's jump into the bonuses. So are performance based bonuses becoming a bigger part of CRC pay structures? And really how do you see these bonuses incentives impact in retention or job satisfaction, especially in a competitive market?

Stacie Merritt: 5:53

I think bonuses would definitely help in a competitive market, but I think it's just a small portion when you're thinking about attrition as a whole. It's nice, but it's not. Be all end all to attrition and whether you're registered or not registered.

Karri Venn: 6:11

Agree so I know a common question in the site chat is, how do you come up with a bonus? I know the biggest taboo in our industry is bonusing based on enrollment and recruitment. So I think that holds true. I think there's been history or stories from audits perspectively you know, people, let's say bringing in the incorrect patients just to kind of hit a screening target and, or, potentially randomizing patients that aren't eligible. So I think if you ever go that route of an enrollment as one of your markers, It's important to have a different personnel unassociated with that bonus that's doing the randomization. I think that is the one way to de risk any potential risks of bonusing for that matter. Over the years, we personally at my old institution really thought about holistically, what are the important factors? So obviously, yes, as a whole, enrollment is important. So we, we looked at it Cross company wide that everyone was a part of supporting that initiative. We talked about quality oftentimes that's a little bit harder to measure quality, but we did it through our own quality control system. And then they had very, transparent, objective viewpoints to understand how they fit. And then we also talked about it from a workload, whether that's a protocol load and, or overall workload. We, had a way to measure the visit or the engagement with the patient to identify a workload kind of score, if you will. So that kind of took away from the actual screening and just talked about, you know, for instance, we all know that as implosive studies, someone could have a potential study. And enrolling in another one is heavy in maintenance visits. And so you want to encourage that maintenance person to help support that enrolling trial due to kind of maybe a short window of enrollment. So really it's looking at it from a workload perspective to support the overall kind of way to measure your coordinator from a bonus perspective. And then I often heard of sites doing based on again, because of cashflow is super critical to sites, especially independent private sites, which is not maybe necessarily a factor at a hospital setting. They would look at it from how the business did and almost kind of a bit of a profit sharing. If you wealth business did well, then so did the staff. So you could look at it from that perspective as well. Have you seen any other ways in which, or talked with other sites, Stacie on how they also looked at bonusing and, and how they measured it and came up with a specific amount?

Stacie Merritt: 8:32

I think you hit all the targets. I think the biggest concern, of course, is you know, risk to bias with regard to the enrollments themselves. I think the better option is to look at it from an overall business perspective. You know, enrolling a particular patient in a study is one part of the puzzle, but if we focus solely on the enrollment piece, then we lose out on perhaps the overall picture and the long term data collection that we need to make this study as viable as possible. So I think you run a risk if you look at bonuses based solely on number of people you bring into a clinical trial.

Karri Venn: 9:15

I agree. Your retention point is spot on too. Retention obviously being super important. So maybe pulling that into your, Overall measurement. I think the most important thing is that you're transparent. People can understand where they sit on a particular if they're being bonused that they understand how to achieve it and how they're doing and that it's not obviously super delayed. So whether it's done on a quarterly basis or very clearly on that annual basis and paid out by a certain term, I think those are also important elements nothing worse than being told you're based on a bonus and you have no idea of how to achieve it and ultimately miss the bonus deadline. I think those are de incentivizing to employees, so it's super important. However, Whatever pathway you go down to, and clearly 68 percent of the sites are doing this that these are some of the, I guess, negatives if you will, if it's not deployed in a correct manner.

Stacie Merritt: 10:07

I would be very interested in looking at statistics on whether or not providing a bonus does increase attrition. And I have to wonder when I look at the average salary being paid, if that doesn't speak to attrition. We're not reaching our ceiling. Is that because people aren't staying in organizations long enough to reach that ceiling? And is there a correlation between bonus and attrition?

Karri Venn: 10:33

Yeah, or maybe again, this goes back to whether it's a smaller site or a larger organization, and I think we saw this in some of the site networks. There's a growth, you know, a coordinator going into a particular company has an idea of what their pathway is to grow. And again, sometimes maybe if you don't have an HR department, as an example, you may not know to show that. And so people ultimately look elsewhere to kind of grow, if you will. So I think probably that's a big part of the evolution of a site network or that they have different positions that people can grow into and that's where the some of the retention opportunities lie. But I think again, it's super important for that smaller site to think of these things to to think about how a coordinator might grow in their role or increase their opportunity to hit that ceiling if you will Stacie.

Stacie Merritt: 11:18

I also think about with regard to attrition and salaries in general, I do work at a hospital organization and to be honest, staff can make a whole lot more if they go work on a unit, taking care of patients then they can working in the research department. And so that definitely impacts you know, our ability to, to keep people long term. And yeah, I'm wondering or curious as to whether or not other organizations experience that, too.

Karri Venn: 11:46

Yeah, that's a good point. I know when I worked in the community, one of our attraction of nurses from hospitals was maybe not doing a shift, right? So your department, I assume, doesn't do shift you know, and that becomes a retention strategy. So again, looking at why people move. It's interesting that on the unit they make more than the actual research department. So what are the areas in which you can attract them? I guess is something you have to think about. So shift was always one that we always favored someone that didn't want to do shift anymore. Okay, so metropolitan areas offer the high salaries. I don't think any of us are surprised by that. That makes sense from a cost of living and being able to survive living in that city. And they also had above average bonuses. So what role do cost of living and competition play in these salary differences? For sites in more rural or lower cost areas. What creative approaches could they also use to attract and keep strong CRCs? So let's take the city. I think again, super important that sponsors realize that maybe a CRC salary in the metropolitan area is higher, so need to adjust budgets accordingly. So this is gets back to not one budget fitting the same size. And I think this happens also with hospital institutions. I think most people realize they receive at least a higher overhead and or overall budget and that probably has to do with the salary ranges they have to pay. It comes down to really like being able to afford to live in that particular city for sure. And then competition. We always, again, being in a, you know, larger city here in Toronto and having a lot of pharma companies that are in our backyard it was well known. We had great, experienced, well trained coordinators and once that HR department held on to that anyone that applied, unfortunately, that became a pathway of opportunity for them to hire. I mean it got so bad that we had to go in and speak to them, but there's no doubt, like, what a site could pay a coordinator based on their business model versus a pharmaceutical company for a, you know, a different role. That was a huge challenge to kind of fight through. So again, in the end, you always look at what retains people. And we looked at it from a perspective of It's very clear people that wanted to see the patient felt the impact of being with the patient. And that was the meaningful reason why they were there. Once they hit that pharma side, they were detached from that experience. So that became the altruistic or finding the person that valued the patient engagement and interaction. As a key cornerstone to retention or hiring. In fact, actually, that was a big part of our interview question to make sure that we were hiring the right individual from an interest perspective from long term because that was always a challenge for us so

Stacie Merritt: 14:29

Well, you know, you mentioned interviewing and asking those right questions during the interview process to make sure that you have the right person for the right role, and I think that is important with regard to that overall retention but then also being up front with regard to what might be expected with regard to pay range is also important. As I mentioned earlier,, my staff can make a whole lot more if they go to work, for example, at bedside than they could in my research department. So being upfront about that and making sure that they understand before accepting the position is important.

Karri Venn: 15:05

Really excellent point, Stacie. I think often people are shy to share that intel in that, that first introduction, but I think over time as an experienced manager, you realize the importance of that you know, being super honest, not setting people up for failure, ultimately. So I, I think that's a really, really important point. For the sites in more rural, lower cost areas, you know, are there any creative approaches that they could use to attract and keep those strong CRCs within those organizations?

Stacie Merritt: 15:32

I think the answer to that is yes. Pay is just a portion of why somebody may stay in a particular role. I think developing your culture is much more valuable with regard to attrition than the monetary that's not to say the pay is not important. But what are those other things that you can capitalize on? How can you encourage people to stay when maybe you aren't able to offer them the financial monetary benefits of somebody else. You know, how can you encourage professional development, for example, by offering opportunities for your staff to learn, go to conferences, participate in continuing education activities? How can you encourage your staff to become a part of professional organizations, such as SCRS. How can you encourage your staff to engage with other stakeholders outside of your department, perhaps, to grow your department or to encourage them in other ways aside from their pocketbook?

Karri Venn: 16:39

No, I think that's important. For sure. We talked about it from a culture perspective. This probably could be a whole another podcast on let's talk not about the salary range. Let's talk about all the other things. And I know SRS has definitely done that in the past with webinars. But yeah, culture for sure. What does that overall package look like? You know, again, exit reviews when a person is departing, what are the reasons why are there nuggets of Intel or practical pearls that you can garner from that? One of our most favored you know, valuable items was the employee appreciation day. Something as simple as giving an extra long weekend in the summer. So instead of the three day weekend, they got a four day weekend and people loved that. So again, when you think of a cost to a business of giving them an extra day during a summer for a long weekend you know, there really isn't that lost revenue generation, if you will, but the amount of happiness it brought to people was so much more valuable. So yeah, I agree beyond just the actual salary itself. Now, being that said, I also think there were times certainly when a coordinator wanted an extra 1000 or 2000 dollars and you really have to pick your battles and coordinators nowadays, when you think about the complexity of onboarding a coordinator and being able to manage that trial that has 10 to 12 different, you know, technology and systems and the transition to a new coordinator to find, train, on board and then on board that study. It's really a high cost. And so you really have to think about the big picture when it comes to it. And really adjust the salary based on retention. Don't squabble over the 1 to 2,000 dollars is kind of my point. I don't know how you feel about that too, Stacie.

Stacie Merritt: 18:21

I agree. I also think that flexibility and work environment is important with regard to attrition. And I think here's where our study sponsors can help us some as well with regard to study design. Are we able to maybe make certain protocol elements remote as opposed to in person, which would allow flexibility and staffing that would increase job satisfaction.

Karri Venn: 18:46

Remote was definitely also a challenge when you think of, again, a rural site that maybe didn't have that big pharma company to go to. But then all of a sudden there was these remote jobs. They had to actually think about the risk of losing that coordinator to a remote position. And so I think even those small sites, and again, a shout out to those rural sites, you have to be thoughtful from a retention strategy. These are now risks. And so right now, again, reporting the lowest floor salaries, just under 50, 000 may need to consider adjusting what you're paying those coordinators from a retention strategy, especially if you're feeling turnover within your organization, that you may need to raise that bar from a retention strategy. Let's switch over to site networks. So they have some of the strongest salary growth at 6. 7 percent was what it basically showed us. And, you know, obviously, there's a lot of consolidation happening and network expansion. Do you think these are influencing some of these salary trends within these organizations?

Stacie Merritt: 19:44

I do believe that they are. It's hard to compete when a certain organization is increasing their rates and you are unable to. So I think being able to take information like this back to your own organization as justification for increasing wages is important.

Karri Venn: 20:01

For sure. I do too. I just think again, as any small organization gets to a larger kind of corporation size there's an opportunity from a revenue that's maybe a little bit more stable or there's just revenue there to pay your salary of your teams and from people's perspective, sites, the biggest cost of sites are the people. And so again, just making sure that you have a business that can sustain that that level of salaries. The other part just might be sometimes when you grow to a certain size. There's an expectation for where you grow within an organization. So does it inflate too much? You know, so these are things that are risks may be associated with the site networks. And so it's certainly going to be interesting watching this play out over the next little bit to see what happens. But I do see this as further competition again for those small individual sites from a retention strategy. But again, people have different reasons why they stay. So, staying within that family, let's say, in that smaller unit, maybe that's really what is the value to that particular individual. So again, put this on your interview question, what are you looking for? Is it kind of the small family feel? Is it the large corporation? People have different needs and you know, those are, those are retention strategies as well. We also broke it down to looking at registered professionals versus non registered. So again, just for our listeners, registered professionals, we're talking like certification or a diploma and or you know, a university degree that has a certification along with it, like a registered nurse or registered dietitian those are kind of what we were bucketing through to the non regulated professionals, which would be more like that life science grad, if you will that became an opportunity to hire coordinators you know, so then you had a variety or a mixture at sites that became a trend over the years. So. Obviously, registered professionals were consistently earning higher salaries and or hourly rates across all levels for CRCs looking to increase their earning potential what career development strategies or skills in general would you recommend, and do you want to really kind of just talk about that you know, I know we had a debate before about a registered professional versus a non registered professional doing the exact same job, and kind of how you feel about that, Stacie, from a, you know, earning potential.

Stacie Merritt: 22:12

I think it's important that we have both registered and non registered professionals in the coordinator role. I think they each bring something different and unique to you know, to the field. I do find it very interesting that there is such a variation in the salaries. Because they are oftentimes doing the same thing, but I do feel like from an organizational perspective, particularly if you are not able to match the salary positions that you know, maybe that non registered position would be more of a bang for your buck. And provide you more assistance for your clinical trial with less salary. That being said, I believe it's important to have those registered professionals. I feel there is a level of critical thinking, perhaps particularly when you're thinking about physical assessments, tasks that require maybe a licensed nurse to do, for example, you know, putting in that IV or doing those type of physical assessments. I think that you need both. But I feel like, you can stretch your dollar a little farther if you will diversify your team a little bit.

Karri Venn: 23:24

No, I think that's absolutely true again, Stacie. I think sites again, looking at tasks and positions for tasks, as opposed to that traditional coordinator does it all. I think in today's world, that is a little bit naive to think that it's very difficult for coordinator to do all in today's world of doing clinical research. And I think sometimes there's restrictions from pharma companies in what non regulated professionals can or cannot do. So certainly you need to have some of those regulated professionals ultimately. To your point and they're paid for that additional regulation or professional accreditation that they need to go through in order to receive that. The other element to think also is certification processes. So there's lots of pathways, whether it be through SOCR or ACRP to get a designation, like a certified clinical research coordinator or associate as an example. And so how do you feel about pay changes associated with achieving some of those certifications?

Stacie Merritt: 24:19

I think it's important that we have a professional achievement structure in place, that you have a clear pathway forward from that entry level to the more advanced position, and a part of that is certification for your non registered and your registered professionals.

Karri Venn: 24:37

Yes, I agree, too. And ultimately, that's what we did. We encouraged everyone to go through that process. Again, it just assures you from a quality risk perspective that those that go through a certification process less risk from a quality risk perspective, and so it was important to pay for that process that that individual went through and just another, again, retention strategy, A, to encourage your people to go through it. So that's to what you were talking before, Stacie, about that professional development pathway that becomes a part of the pathway. Maybe something you cover as part of their employment agreement or contract that's an additional perk. And then ultimately you're investing in them to be a more experienced and great clinical research coordinator. So why shouldn't you pay more for that?

Stacie Merritt: 25:20

I also feel that that's more appealing to the study sponsors when they're looking for sites, so you can encourage revenue into your organization through promoting certification. It's a win win.

Karri Venn: 25:33

Awesome. This is really great. I know, SCRS we were very cognizant to really share this just with the executive and owners and operators. So if you are out there and you did not get the actual, let's say document that we've produced from this survey. We ask you to reach out to Marissa Hill at marissa.hill@myscrs.org, so just to spell that out to make sure everyone knows. M-A-R-I-S-S-A dot. H-I-L-L at my SCRS dot org. So that's the email, definitely reach out to her. We were just again cognizant about this being out the public and sharing for everybody. We do respect that some of the owner operators want to shield some of that information. But again, if we're really all trying to get to transparency, maybe this is something that we can eventually get to publish. I mean, ultimately, the data is out there on some of these other Zip, Recruiter, Glassdoor, it's out there. So I think we have to kind of get to that point of transparency. And just to further add, there are some states that are requirements. So know what your state does require from publishing the salary data. So, thanks again, Stacie for your work on this important project and joining me today. I know this is something that has been in the books for years. We wanted this information. We are so grateful to the owner operators for actually completing the survey again as you see surveys come out from a CRS. It's just a really great opportunity to aggregate the information within our industry and share that back to you. So for our listeners, don't forget to explore a site focused resources like the site workforce and inflation toolkit again, available on myscrs.Org lots of great information, really helping build your site to be a very successful site. Stacie, any kind of parting words before we close out here?

Stacie Merritt: 27:20

Thank you for listening today and I hope you find it helpful.

Karri Venn: 27:24

Awesome. Thank you.