IT/BPM compensation benchmarking report out

Pricewater house Coopers, Sri Lanka (PwC) recently concluded the 2015/16 compensation and benefit survey for the Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Management (BPM) industry in Sri Lanka and published a benchmarking report on behalf of SLASSCOM. 

The SLASSCOM-PwC compensation benchmarking report published is part of SLASSCOM’s initiatives to promote the workforce talent within the industry whilst also helping disseminate latest talent management practices in order to enable local companies to be globally competitive. 

As part of ongoing efforts to improve the benchmarking process, during this year, standardised industry job levels and a level wise competency framework was developed and employed in order to ease the comparability of results across companies.

As local companies have endeavoured to grow, we have witnessed what can be perceived as a demand-led escalation in entry level graduate salaries for mainstream business areas such as software engineering and quality assurance within the IT sector. Salaries at the entry level on average witnessed a higher rate of increase in comparison to those at senior positions whilst budgeted estimates for 2016 indicate likelihood of witnessing further upward movement of these pay levels. 

The BPM sector in particular is noted to have been promoting career opportunities amongst a younger audience and promoting opportunities to fast-track entry into the industry talent pool. 

Having a look at the skill requirement, areas such as Infrastructure Engineering, Information Security, PHP, Hyperion and Application Engineering have been reported as high demand areas of specialisation within the IT sector whilst Finance and Accounting skills continue to be primary skills in wide demand within the BPM sector. Looking forward, discussions with industry stakeholders have identified legal process outsourcing (LPO) as a potential new growth segment receiving renewed interest and possibly an area for inclusion in future benchmarking studies. 

The compensation and benefits survey report also provides a summary of the 2016 budget proposal for the IT/BPM sector whilst providing a comprehensive analysis on workforce represented through the survey, employee turnover, compensation strategies, entry level and graduate hires and the modern HR practices and trends. The benchmarking report has covered 150 job positions across a wide range of job families. Having a look at the reported key strategies for attracting and engaging staff, company culture was ranked the highest in comparison to company image and work flexibility reported in the previous  year. It was also noticed that companies promote an agile work environment with direct client exposure which creates the learning environment that strengthens the retention strategies. Further, encouraging employees to contribute to organisation strategy, creating a learning environment where cross functional team building and information sharing is encouraged and focus on competency frameworks for skill development are amongst a few HR initiatives  reported this year. 

The report also provides an analysis on the benefits provided, where the benefits provided across various staff levels have been discussed. The survey report continues to provide insights and international practices and trends in talent management based on PwC’s global research and thought leadership publications.  PwC has been privileged to continue its long-standing association with SLASSCOM, the industry representative body that has been at the forefront of promoting the visibility and capabilities of the local IT and BPM industry. 

SLASSCOM is the national chamber for the IT/BPM industry in Sri Lanka and acts as the catalyst of growth for the Sri Lankan IT and BPM industry by facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouragement of research and innovation, and by supporting the creation of a progressive national policy framework. It has an ambitious 2022 Vision to become a $ 5 billion industry, creating 200,000 direct jobs and launching 1,000 start-ups.