Finally, good times are here again, experts point out. The economy is looking brighter, markets are showing signs of growth and India Inc is all smiles because of a strong growth in earnings recently. As India Inc emerges out of the downturn, many organisations are taking a re-look at salary hikes, perks and bonuses.
They expect greater demand for top grade manpower and are taking measures to retain them. Sangeeta Singh, executive director - HR, KPMG expresses, "With the economy headed towards recovery, companies are restarting their earlier practice of aggressive hiring. In the New Year, as India gears up to fight the economic slowdown and bounce back, companies are re-looking at their compensatory policies and introducing changes for the good. Currently, the trend is to emphasise on performance-linked incentives."
"In the year 2010, the salaries seem like they are moving north and most of us are now looking at being marked to the market/competition. In our organisation, we follow an October-September year, so our increments are due in October. At this point, we are waiting to see how the trends pan out so that we can plan our strategy accordingly."
According to Rajesh Varma, VP–HR, Max Healthcare Institute Limited, "First of all, we have to understand that healthcare’s performance has been tad different from the rest of the industries. It did not have a direct impact due to the recession but the pressure was still there. However, we are again looking at giving better increments and retaining good sets of people. We are working on the kind of increment we are planning to hand out this year. I think it will vary between 15-20 per cent, in that range. Bonuses and incentives depend on the overall performance of the company.”
Bhaskar Bhattacharya, DGM – HR, MIRC Electronics Limited (ONIDA) points out, “With the economy starting its journey towards the north, I believe that all companies will go for salary revisions during the coming financial year i.e. 2010-11 . The results of the Q3 also verify the same. We are also planning to have annual salary revision based upon organisational and individual performance. We are in the process of studying the market trends; based upon the same, we will decide our salary hikes. We will continue our past practice of giving salary hikes through fixed increment and increase in performance pay, based upon the performance grid.”
“Yes, we are considering salary hikes for this year in our review cycle. Also, we paid variable pay last year and are likely to pay it this year as well. Our hike will be in line with the IT industry’s performance. At Logica, we have a holistic compensation approach that encompasses performance merit, market alignment, internal parity, etc,” shares Sameer Khanna, head - compensation and training, Logica, India. Similarly, at Haeir Appliances, since the annual salary revision time is approaching, they are geared towards doing industry benchmarking and will, accordingly take action.
“The fixed increase would at least be about 10-15 per cent, plus the variable component. We have increased our budget for salary revision for 2010. We would be looking at healthy growth for our employees. This will be a year, which will be different from 2009. So, this year, we will have to give good growth opportunities to our employees because the business growth is also evident,” says Sandeep Tyagi, GM-HR , Haier Appliances India.
It is true that most companies are gearing up to offer good increments to their employees. But, how different things really are, as opposed to last year? “During the FY 2009-10 , we did not give any pay hikes to our employees; however, fixed bonuses were paid. Like a majority of the companies, during the FY 2009 -10 , due to the financial pressure and in a quest to maintain provision for the future, we skipped the annual salary revisions as well,” informs Bhattacharya.
Khanna points out, “Though we did not give pay hikes last year, we did give out bonus/variable pay. Logica continued other investments in employees and did not stop grooming its best talent. Last year, we also launched a group wide employee recognition scheme to reward/recognise good talent to foster employee engagement.”
“If you talk about the healthcare industry, due to the economic pressure, the healthcare industry did have to bear some brunt. This year, however, with the market looking up, more and more hospitals are mushrooming, thus giving job opportunities to candidates everywhere. Therefore, increments will be much higher than what we gave last year,” Varma adds.
However, at KPMG, they did give increments. “As we do each year, we link our compensation strategy to both, the market realities and our own growth and profits,” explains Singh. Tyagi further informs, “We had given good hikes even last year. But last year, the pay hike in certain senior managerial levels was quite low. So, this year, we need to take care of that too.”
Experts say that salary hikes are said to be taking place across sectors right from IT and financial services to manufacturing. Varma feels, “I am sure healthcare is certainly there. Telecom will also be good and in my opinion, FMCG should also witness positive growth. My personal feeling is that keeping the Commonwealth Games in mind, even sectors like hospitality and civil aviation will bounce back.”
Khanna points out that it is difficult to hazard a guess as it depends on the sectors’ performance and profitability. “In my view, sectors that are likely to perform better this year could be IT, pharma, automobiles, etc, given the growth in these industries,” he says.
“I personally believe that sectors like IT, automobile, banking, telecom and realty will give good increments because they will gain most during the post-recession period. During the recession period, these sectors were worst hit and now it is their turn to earn handsome profits. Currently, it is the initial stage of the economic turnaround; they need to keep employees motivated and further retain people at this crucial stage. Another purpose that providing good increments will helps us serve is that it will attract people to fuel the growth in the coming time,” expresses Bhattacharya.
Looking at the way the economy is returning to shape now, it seems that good times are certainly in store and things will only get better for organisations and their employees. Here’s to a bright future!
By Yasmin Taj, TNN
No comments:
Post a Comment