It was our great pleasure to host the 8th Annual “State of the Remuner-Nation” event with Jodie and Jairus from Aon to an audience of close to 200 reward aficionados.
Jodie took us through the latest intelligence on how salaries have moved – it was no surprise to see medical research, transportation and retail jobs showed the strongest wage growth over the past year; essential service workers receiving their dues, and richly deserved. Salary growth has rebounded to pre-covid levels in the mid 2% zone after bottoming at 1.1% last year, but the question is will the pent up demand translate into a take-off rather than just a rebound. Clients are certainly remarking that “everyone else” is targeting them, but they see less evidence of adjusting pay of current employees to match new hire rates.
Jairus then challenged the audience that wages growth over the past two decades, and more particularly since 2016, has been so slow that the share of national income going into profits has grown while the share going to wages has declined. Its unsurprising then that as soon as the market turns and supply and demand get out of whack that we see a big uptick in resignations. But he also pointed out that companies with a great EVP, mission or purpose can and do hire at market median, whereas those without have to hire at market upper quartile or upper decile if they don’t have something really compelling. He also noted that some companies who really looked after their people and prioritised them over profits the last 18 months are reaping the return in terms of low resignation rates and higher discretionary effort and commitment.
The event concluded with the annual Jobby awards for the weirdest, coolest and funniest job titles in Aon’s general industry database of over 200,000 employees. We learned what a Slitter and a Bar Useful (aka Juggy) do, marvelled at what must be involved in being “Assistant to the Chair” or a “Pit Master” but the award was taken by the “Community and Culture Ninja”. No assassinations in the office please!!!
Aon announced some exciting new research initiatives in the areas of hot technology skills, please reach out to them if interested in learning more at Jodie.fraser@aon.com and jairus.ashworth@aon.com
