SLASSCOM’s salary survey shares insights on IT/BPM industry compensation, benefits
Friday, 17 April 2015 04:24
-
- {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
SLASSCOM Compensation and Benefits Survey 2014/15 was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the fifth consecutive year and reported the highest number of industry participation thus far. Over 40 companies accounting for a workforce of close to 14,000 representing the Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Management (BPM) industry in Sri Lanka had participated in the 2014/15 survey.
The survey report is a comprehensive study of the human capital employed within the IT/BPM sector and provides details on the IT and BPM talent pool, industry HR practices and trends along with the compensation and benefit analysis of over 100 job positions across a wide spectrum of job families. With the increasing demand for skilled labour and with the expansion of the IT and BPM industry in Sri Lanka, having access to up to date information on current HR trends, challenges and practices along with benchmark details for compensation and benefits is vital. This report aims to provide readers with such vital information in order to facilitate alignment of corporate human capital initiatives with local market practices.
The survey report includes key talent attraction, retention and engagement drivers adopted within the sector and discusses how the attractiveness of different drivers have changed over the years. Competitive compensation has been a key factor to attract and retain talent within the sector. Whilst the rate of staff attrition has been observed as an on-going concern within the sector, this is not unique to Sri Lanka. As per the survey, the IT sector companies have managed to reduce attrition rates during 2014.
Head of Human Resource Consulting Services at PwC, Sri Lanka Lasanga Abeysuriya said: “Successful companies have managed to tackle the attrition problem not only by focusing on pay and benefits, but also by job empowerment and staff engagement whilst also looking at introducing new work arrangements.”
The survey report presents entry level and new graduate level compensation details for most common job roles and also presents historical and planned wage increases reported by participants from both the IT and BPM sectors.
Increased focus on performance based pay or variable pay practices have been amongst the most popular compensation strategies looked at by survey participants over the past years. Survey results to date however suggest a lag in the actual adoption of such practices with the reported maximum variable component during 2014 being less than 15% of total compensation. Software Engineering and Quality Assurance fields were amongst those with the fewest companies reporting the payment of any variable compensation to staff.
In order to analyse compensation and benefit data provided by participant companies, PwC has employed a four step approach where focus is given to job roles and position responsibilities rather than mere job designations. The study results provide statistical information, including market mean, median and percentiles on surveyed job positions under each job family of both the IT and BPM sectors.
SLASSCOM Chairman Jayantha De Silva shared his thoughts regarding the successful completion and publishing of the survey results stating, “SLASSCOM’s Compensation and Benefit Survey has fulfilled the need of a compensation and benefits benchmarking tool for IT and BPM industry in Sri Lanka, very well. The survey is in its 5th consecutive year and is therefore in a position to provide a narrative and illustration of the expansion of the IT/BPM industry during the past five years. SLASSCOM’s consistent effort in conducting this survey has resulted in a reservoir of information which is extremely useful for policy makers and all other stakeholders of the industry.”
SLASSCOM is Sri Lanka’s premier IT-BPM and Knowledge Services industry chamber, active in facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouragement of research and innovation, and supporting the creation of a progressive national policy framework in the interest of the IT-BPM industry.
