Dive Brief:
- Base salary increases are predicted to be “modest” next year across the board, averaging at about 2.3 to 2.5% overall, though it can range as high as 3% depending on an employee’s skillset. HR practitioners are at the low end of this scale, at around 2.3%, SHRM reports.
- HR may be getting squeezed because they tend to be viewed as the “middle layers” of an organization, Sherry Dixon, senior vice president for the southern division at Adecco Staffing USA, told SHRM.
- As researchers have predicted, pay raises remain low despite dropping levels of unemployment and the shift to an “employee’s market.” However, actual raises are generally lower than the predicted 2.9-3%.
Dive Insight:
Money for increased salaries is spread thin. “Those dollars that may have been spread across three to four layers are now being spread across five, six or seven layers,” Dixon said.
While salary increases have slowed, performance-based bonuses are becoming increasingly popular compensation benefits.
“You wouldn’t have to go back far to see an 8% salary raise and 0% for variable pay,” Ken Abosch, broad-based compensation practice leader for Aon Hewitt, told HR Dive. In comparison, variable pay (bonuses) increases average as high as 12.9%, a sharply noticeable trend, Abosch said.