Reward jobs are the best paid in personnel

Reward managers have the best paid jobs in the personnel profession, earning twelve per cent more than the average salary for the profession, reveals the latest reward survey of personnel professionals from Croner Reward in association with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Commenting on this finding, Charles Cotton, CIPD reward adviser says, Reward practitioners are currently engaged in some of the most challenging and exciting aspects of remuneration and recognition, such as pensions and retirement, reward and diversity, and executive remuneration and corporate governance. I am not surprised that they enjoy such a premium. The CIPD is supporting reward practitioners in many ways, not least through the new certificate in reward management - which will help more personnel professionals enter this potentially lucrative discipline.

The research, based on 7,825 HR jobs in over 1,500 organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors, also highlights a gulf in earnings by sector. Personnel directors employed in private sector service firms enjoy a pay premium of 19% over the going rate, while their colleagues in manufacturing and public services receive 5% less and those voluntary sector get 13% below the average.

The survey also reveals a pay gap according to gender among personnel directors, with male personnel directors earning 22% more than their female counterparts. The report argues that the equal pay gap is largely down to the fact that there is a higher proportion of female personnel directors in the public and voluntary sectors and a lower proportion of female personnel directors among the larger, private sector, employers. The average pay gap among directors in the private sector is as much as 19,000 compared with an average of 13,750 across all sectors.

Ian James, research manager at Croner Reward says, The report clearly demonstrates that the personnel profession is currently a rewarding place to work. The profession is happy with its pay, job security and job satisfaction, confident of future promotions and has a high level of morale.

And as Cotton concludes, This is hardly surprising given the capacity for people managers to make a positive difference and contribution to their organisations. People managers have been effective on issues such as pensions, equal pay and work-life balance to name but a few. But, as is clear from related CIPD research, there is still a huge amount of work to do in terms of promoting good people management across the board in organisations.



Other key findings:
* The changing pension landscape is impacting on the HR profession. While 95% of HR professionals surveyed said their employers offered a pension scheme, only 66% were offered a defined benefit scheme, compared with 90% in 1994. By contrast, defined contribution schemes have grown from 10% of organisations offering such a scheme in 1994 to 34%.
* Employer contribution rates to defined benefit schemes are typically 13-15%, while the normal contribution to a defined contribution scheme is around 5-6%.
* The majority (61%) of personnel professionals received a pay rise of between 3-4%.
* Those from the private services sector are the most optimistic regarding forthcoming pay rises with 16% of them forecasting a 5% increase.
* At senior manager level the equal pay gap is 6-8% with female managers earning an average of 37, 000 compared with their male counterparts of 40, 000.
* The level of provision of company cars for Personnel Directors has dropped by 9% since last year, which continues the trend in recent years away from company car perks.