Lack of vacancies in Reward..

[lwthomas2009]

Hello Everyone,

I have been on the lookout over the past two months for positions in the area of Remuneration and Benefits; to my amazement they are very scarce. Has anybody else noticed this?

After working as a Reward Analyst for a major salary survey provider and within a big 4 banking institution in the United Kingdom, I have returned home and found it very difficult to find a job. I have experience in market job matching, salary benchmarking, advanced MI modelling, annual reward review, HR policy review and supported a new global reward strategy.

Does anybody know of any positions arising in the future? Or can anybody point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Moz]

Assuming of that much of the increase in demand for Rem & Ben specialists in recent years was driven by the need to attract and retain people, then surely it must follow that the economic downturn has nullified or even reversed that trend.

There are many companies, especially in accounting, finance and banking that were desperately trying to attract new talent in the middle of last year, but by October they had frozen recruitment and were looking at how they could shed staff. That doesn't mean there is no demand, but for most organisations Rem & Ben is probably not a priority right now.

That's my take on it anyway

[lwthomas2009]

You have a good point there Moz.

But as human capital is for most organisations one of its highest costs, surely now is a good time to be reviewing remuneration processes. A move in focus toward total reward is just one step, with less of a view made on base salary and fixed pay; with a push for variable performance based bonuses / incentives (in turn cutting out fixed costs). Or identify and reward to retain key high performers, and filter out lower performers. Anyway, there are many ways that Rem & Bens can cut costs for these organisations, you would think that some would see this as important?

[Moz]

I agree with you and I am sure that some organisations are being smart about their use of Rem & Ben, but the problem is we are also seeing knee jerk reactions and panic in some companies as their revenues fall of a cliff. In the 1990 recession here in Australia many companies made drastic cuts to HR staffing and while I believe HR is perceived as more essential today it's not going to be immune to staff cuts. So some Rem & Ben jobs will have simply disappeared and people in good/safe Rem & Ben positions are much less likely to change jobs. Whereas previously the market was buoyant, Rem & Ben was one of the highest paid HR specialist roles and constant movement in the market created opportunities. That situation is now reversed and that's why there are very few opportunities at the moment (IMHO).