Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention: The Importance of Salary Evaluation against Salary Guides

​Employees are a company's greatest asset; they directly translate business goals into profits and drive a company forward. If an organisation's success depends largely on its staff, then how can engagement and retention not be your primary focus? Here's how salary guides can help your business stay ahead of the competition by improving employee satisfaction.

Research shows that job satisfaction is a reliable indicator of talent retention; a satisfied employee is more likely to be loyal, committed, motivated and productive. There are several factors influencing job satisfaction including career progression, job fit, work/life balance and pay & benefits.

A recent Workforce 2020 study conducted by Oxford Economics and SAP SE highlighted that competitive compensation and benefits package is the key to employee retention. While salary compensates the employees for performing the tasks assigned to them, incentives are incorporated into the package to reward them for exceptional results and boost their morale.

Companies are always engaged in a cut-throat competition to attract and retain the brightest talents in the market; and here, an attractive remuneration and benefits package is often used as a primary incentive. When designed and implemented properly, employee compensation schemes, including benefits, bonuses and other rewards, can motivate workers towards achieving business goals and create a satisfied workforce. On the other hand, if the employee package is not on par with industry standards or jobs are not benchmarked against market data, then the company is likely to suffer loss, both in terms of financial and human resources.  That's why it is important to benchmark your salary packages against salary guides that are specific to your niche industry and jurisdiction.

Whether you're looking to evaluate an employee's worth in the job market or gain industry insights, to check what skills are in-demand, salary guides can prepare you to successfully hire and retain high-performing professionals. A salary guide offers comprehensive salary information for a particular job or for multiple jobs across one or more sectors and geographic regions. By helping inaccurate salary evaluations, these guides enable you to check if you're overpaying, or if you need to revise your staffing strategy.

Without a sound understanding of the salary and employment trends, it is difficult to roll out a comprehensive incentive scheme. For example, market insights highlight specific areas of skill shortage. Accordingly, employers can review and improve their compensation packages to attract professionals with specialist skills that are in-demand.  

And the first step towards successful recruitment is posting an effective job ad - a sales pitch attracts the right candidates only when it clearly highlights the benefits and perks and career development opportunities on offer. Here salary guides can help you craft compelling job descriptions with better-defined employee responsibilities and salary range.

Overall, salary guides are vital for businesses to make informed and effective decisions relating to employee remuneration and budgeting.

Owing to fluctuations in market conditions and salary ranges, it is advisable to conduct a salary evaluation at least annually, as well as to keep your job adverts updated. For benchmarking, companies can access salary information from publicly available salary surveys or annual company reports. However, most organisations either lack the resources to analyse and effectively use this information, or fail to find a guide that caters to their specific sector and/or jurisdiction.

Given the competitiveness of the employment market, particularly within finance and IT, accurate salary evaluation against a trusted salary guide is vital to employee engagement and retention. Using guides created by established staffing/HR specialists, such as AP Group, to create a compensation structure that's tailored to the organisation's goals can save a lot of time and resources.

Backed by over 25 years of experience in recruitment/HR consultancy, AP Group's salary guides offer junior to board level salary information for key finance and technology sectors covered by the firm's specialist divisions, namely AP Executive, AP Personnel and AP Technical. Drawing on the firm's diverse specialist expertise and extensive knowledge of the local markets, the salary guides accurately reflect the current salary trends in specific sectors and jurisdictions, primarily dealing with Guernsey, Jersey, Switzerland and Cyprus.

Updated on a quarterly basis for relevance and accuracy, the guides include salary indications for range of sectors including trust &company, fund administration, private equity, accounting and finance, banking and investment, risk and compliance, family office, asset management, accounting and legal, as well as the IT sector, covering telecommunications, electronics, web, e-commerce and eGaming.  The AP Group salary guides are useful for companies of all sizes, ranging from small boutique firms to international blue chip organisations, for new staff hire, staff appraisals and salary reviews.

"AP Group's divisions AP Executive, AP Personnel and AP Technical have been working at the coalface of salary evaluations since 1990.  Speaking daily to clients and candidates we have developed an in-depth knowledge about the current job market's salary levels and expectations from prospective employees.  We are well placed to provide the information you need when reviewing your annual salaries or during performance reviews," comments Gina Le Prevost, CEO and Founder of AP Group.

For more information on our salary guides and comprehensive consultancy in all areas of recruitment and talent management, please contact our dedicated recruitment consultants today or email us at info@apgroupglobal.com.