Remuneration Reviews

[belinda]

I have been given the task to review our currently salarys for our Finance team and myself (HR).

What is the standard CPI increase?

What resources are others using to gather competitive salaries?

Thanks Belinda

[HRbeat]

The CPI increase changes every year and usually, the Corporate Services Exec or most senior accountant is the best person to ask as they are updated with these figures.

We use the AIM classification survey where I am now...other useful benchmarks is the Hays Salary Survey released around May each year.

For executive remuneration, sometimes engaging a specialist consultant is useful. Certainly, engaging an independent consultant is beneficial if the review includes your own salary and you were asked to provide the recommendation.

[osakajode]

Hi Belinda,
Unfortunately CPI is not a good indicator of salary movements. In the last few years increases have outstripped CPI significantly, and now CPI may in fact be higher than average movements! Referencing CPI can be a good idea though in arguing your case for a specific budget (ie. if you give only 2% when CPI is 2.5% then in effect people's real salaries are going backwards). I believe it is at 2.5% at the moment.

You should look to some reliable benchmark data to actually compare where each of your employees sits relative to the market and then consider what the organisation can afford in this market. I'm a little biased as I work for a remuneration company which produces a great general industry salary survey (which covers HR & Finance) which I would recommend. I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to advertise on here though, so if you are interested then please private message me and I can provide some more details.

[Mark D]

We use the quarterly Hewitt CSi salary survery for our industry sector. Our annual reviews are done in April, so the latest survey for the March quarter is very timely for us.

[Moz]

...other useful benchmarks is the Hays Salary Survey released around May each year.

Last time I used the Hays Salary Survey I was looking at salaries for scientific and engineering staff. I found it was way too generic in the description of the roles and on the whole the salary figures they quoted were much lower than the reality of the private sector market for these people. In other words, it was useless.

For specialist staff, it can be dangerous to rely on 'benchmarks' or average salary figures, unless you know that's what your competitors are paying!