A key factor in the attraction and retention of your senior managers and directors is obviously where their salary packages are when compared to your competitors and the marketplace in general. However, do you really know what salaries are on offer out there? Although the impression is that there is little recruitment activity at present, your key staff are still vulnerable to approaches from your competitors who may wish to buy-in their expertise.
To help you counter this we are able to benchmark your current salary packages against the actual earnings of the equivalent positions in your competitors and key firms within your sector and industry.
Although some salary information can be taken from published data, it is no substitute for knowing exactly what key personnel in similar, relevant firms are actually paid at present and the exact makeup of their benefits packages.
What Should You Be Paying?
There has always been a debate over whether to use a straight cash incentive – i.e. a big basic salary, or a range of flexible and worthwhile benefits to keep those staff that may think of moving on. Whilst basic salaries may be reasonably uniform across different size organisations in a particular sector, benefit packages have varied enormously from none (yes some employers offer nothing!) to everything conceivable including childcare, share options, training courses, sponsored education and paternity pay.
There is no doubt that a good total package is very attractive to an employee and will help to both motivate them and retain them. Recently, we have seen candidates who have been offered a position looking in greater detail at the total package rather than purely the basic salary and bonus potential.
The Risk of Being Average
Do not forget that if your company pays the ‘average’ for their industry sector, whilst this may feel right, your employees are at risk since 50% of your competitors will pay more than you, giving a 1 in 2 chance that your employees will be tempted elsewhere. Even if you pay upper quartile salaries, 10% of the companies in your sector will pay more!
The InterSearch Salary Survey
We are able to benchmark the salary packages of your key people (either at management, director or senior technical level) by comparing them to the actual salaries and benefits paid to the equivalent personnel in your competitors. Key to this information though is that it is very important that we are able to explain in a final report the link between the pay data, job description and level with its relativity to your own company and sector. This involves speaking with individuals in your competitors; ideally we will investigate around 10-15 target companies who are your main competitors and are of a similar size and structure. We will also talk to the HR functions within these organizations and also to some of the departmental and line managers to further glean information about salary and benefit packages as well as any industry specific retention/recruitment issues.
Recent Examples
Board of Directors £50million, 260 person Process Contractor
Board of Directors £15million Specialist Contractor
Board of Directors Specialist Supplier to the Food Industry
Managing Director £8million Product Supplier
Managing Director £100million Rail Contractor
Management Team Engineering Contractor
Engineering Team £100million Engineering Consultancy
London Team National Engineering Organisation
Sectors investigated to date include paper, food, chemicals, water & waste treatment, rail, healthcare and utilities.
Final Report
We will prepare a final report giving an indication of an average salary and typical benefits paid for each particular role together with a list of examples from your competitors.
Please contact us for an informal discussion about your individual needs and how we may be able to help you on 020 3130 0390 or email us at consultancy@intersearchuk.com
