{ Salary rises for candidate short areas… }
20.07.12
I read an article this week in the Australian Financial Review that indicated that salary growth is being seen in the market, though confined to those areas that are candidate short – mining, resources, legal and accounting practices all being mentioned directly. This certainly accords with what we are seeing in what continues to be a multi-speed economy.
While some companies such as the Commonwealth Bank have recently announced well publicised salary freezes for their executives (the article also outlined a number of other companies including ANZ, Westfield and AMP), those companies in areas experiencing candidate shortages have been forced to pay more to attract and retain staff. While in our experience, we have seen relatively modest salary increases in areas such as legal and tax, which are acutely candidate short, salary increases in these areas are coming in the form of bonuses to ensure retention of star performers or attract high performers to an organisation. To this extent, the use of bonuses and performance based incentives are increasingly becoming common. Certainly in the legal market, while some sections of a firm are struggling, others are very busy and it becomes important to recognise the contribution of those staff. As a result modest pay rises across the firm, supplemented by performance based bonuses, have become an effective retention and attraction strategy.
