PAY PROSPECTS
IDS publishes pay analysis for 2000
The latest issue of IDS Report, published by independent pay analysts Incomes Data Services in London, includes its annual assessment of prospects for wage bargaining for the year ahead. This 36-page special issue offers an overview of trends in the past wage round and examines the varying pattern of pay rises in a range of business sectors.
IDS also provides an insight into the issues likely to find expression at the bargaining table in the coming year — everything from family friendly employment to partnership at work.
Although IDS expects settlements to pick up, it does not expect the acceleration in economic growth to lead to a dramatic upsurge in pay awards as the extent of labour market tightness is very uneven around the country and across sectors .
Among the key reward management issues to emerge from the IDS research are the following:
1. The low inflation environment has created problems within individual performance pay schemes as a small pot for distributing merit awards allows little room for reward .
2. Organisations with merit pay have found that in tighter labour markets salary awards are much more based on market pay movements than individual performance.
3. Employers will be scrutinising their benefit provisions to improve recruitment and retention in tighter labour markets.
With the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, appealing for wage restraint, IDS warns that major changes to pay arrangements in both the health service and teaching will cost extra money. An unwritten rule of pay bargaining is that new payment systems require extra funding so that employees ‘ buy into’ the new terms from the beginning.
Want to know more?
Title: IDS Report 794, September 1999
Price: copies of IDS Report 794 are available at £ 30 as part of a three-month trial subscription
Availability: Incomes Data Services, tel: 0171 250 3434
Want to know more? The IDS web site is one click away . . . http://www.incomesdata.co.uk/report/payprospects.htm