Andrew Setchell, director of commerce at recruitment consultancy Robert Walters, explains some of the key findings from a recent pay and compensation and jobs survey.
Robert Walters recently surveyed 400 accountants currently working within commerce and industry about the bonuses and pay rise they have received over the past year, their willingness to move jobs and their expectations for the future. The results proved really interesting and give a real insight into sentiment in the market at the moment.
Most strikingly, 73% of accountants are currently looking to move roles and, of these, most (60%) cite career progression as the primary motivating factor for thinking about moving. This is perhaps indicative of people not receiving the promotions they would have liked over the past couple of years and looking to get their own personal development plans back on track.
Despite this, a significant proportion – 63% in total – of accountants have changed jobs within the past two years. Significantly, many have received significant pay rises when switching roles – more than six in ten have secured increases of ten per cent.
This is particularly interesting, demonstrating that there have been good job opportunities available over the past couple of years if you know where to look. It also shows that the best performers are highly valued in the current market and employers do have budget in place to attract individuals with the skill sets they are looking for.
Rewarding the best
This focus on rewarding top performers is further borne out by some of the other findings in the survey. For example, only 51% of accountants surveyed have received a pay rise in 2011 and 59% of these have received an increase of between one and five per cent of their salary.
Therefore, while companies do have budget in place to reward their staff, they seem to be offering the largest pay rises to their best people as they look to sufficiently incentivise and retain them.
The future’s fairly bright
As for future expectations, accountants seem broadly optimistic – 81% are expecting a salary increase in the next year. However, 68% of these are expecting a rise of less than five per cent.
Thus, while employees are reasonably positive in spite of challenging market conditions, they are also realistic enough to know that they are unlikely to receive the significant increases they may have expected in years gone by.
Links
CIMA MY JOBS
Accounting roles proving recession proof
See the full survey results