Salary Surveys: pay close attention!

It’s the time of year again when HR departments are busily analysing market salary data and employees are discovering whether they will be happy or frustrated when learning of their annual pay reviews.

For employers it’s crucial that they have an informed understanding of what constitutes ‘market rate’ salaries for all the various positions they employ within their business. Equally it’s just as important that individuals know their market value relevant to their responsibilities, qualifications and experience.

That’s not to say that salary surveys provide an individual with proof that they are ‘worth’ a certain salary. But they do give guidance on what a future employer might expect them to be earning, which can be of huge importance. Rightly or wrongly (in my view: wrongly!), a fair proportion of prospective employers will consider an individual’s current salary when considering what they feel is a fair offer to attract someone. If they’re already well below market rate, they might be happy to take any payrise even though it is still below the market average.

Therefore, if you find yourself being paid a salary lower than your peers, you may well find that this sticks with you for the duration of your career (unless you do something to address it), which can amount to a considerable sum – more than you might be consciously willing to forego in favour of good team morale, convenient location and stability.

Of course, I wouldn’t advocate marching in to your line manager and demanding a pay rise but, if you haven’t already, it may be sensible to raise this as a topic for conversation during appraisals/reviews at an appropriate time. If you come to the realisation (or are informed) that your current employer knowingly pays at the lower end of the market, you should really consider the potential long term difference in earnings rather than just the next 12 months and based on this decide whether it’s an amount you’re happy to sacrifice or whether you might want to start looking to increase your salary elsewhere.

I’m currently conducting a salary survey in association with the Institute of Legal Finance & Management (http://www.ilfm.org.uk/) for the niche area I recruit for – accounting staff working for law firms. If you’re working within this area, please click the link and participate!