Companies reverting to pre-pandemic levels of incentives; avg increment to be 9%: Report

After a brief dip in 2020, organisations are reverting to pre-pandemic levels of investment in incentives and the industry average for increment this year is expected to be 9 per cent, a survey said on Wednesday.

According to Mercer’s Total Remuneration Survey, which was conducted with 988 companies, around 5,700 job functions and over 14 lakh cumulative employee strength, sectors such as consumer, life sciences and technology have all forecasted increments to be higher than the industry average in 2022.

"A key positive is that organisations across the board are reverting to pre-pandemic levels of investment in rewards, expected to be at about 9 per cent for all industries in 2022, compared to 7.7 per cent in 2020, signalling positive economic and business sentiment," said Mansee Singhal, Sr Principal, Rewards Consulting Leader India.

Across all employee categories, increments in tech were back to 2019 levels of 9 per cent and higher than all industries average of 8 per cent for 2021.

Key specializations which command a premium are Software Development, R&D, pre-sales product consulting and Data Sciences to a tune of 12 per cent within the Internet job family, the survey added.

"The Total Remuneration Survey overwhelmingly confirms that technology-related skills will be rewarded with a high premium in the current and next few talent cycles till some sort of correction sets in," Singhal added.

The survey also found that the salaries for new hires across tenure continued to remain highly competitive with the Premium for last 1 year joiners across levels, more prominent at mid to senior managerial roles.

Also, due to the infusion of campus talent at the entry level, there was higher investment in reward for Techno functional roles (especially in IT product organizations), the survey said.

Salary trends across hierarchy designations are seeing volatile differentials. While a management-level employee in the manufacturing sector commanded a premium of 10.2 per cent, an executive in the sector is in fact witnessing lower than the level median pay, it added.

From a location standpoint, while Bengaluru still commands a significant premium for software development engineering roles, average high-tech salaries in Delhi and Mumbai have started showing an upward trend due to the majority of the Internet / e-commerce companies being based out of these two locations.

"The differentials of salaries basis skills, locations and performance will continue to challenge HR leaders as they look to do more with their rewards budgets," Singhal said.