Watson Wyatt has just issued a report on how employers are responding to the economic crisis. The results are surprising, and perhaps a bit shocking. Salary budgets for 2009 continue to be slashed, and projections are at the lowest point reported yet – 1.5% increases are the average for the coming year.
Here is the link: https://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/pdfs/WT-2009-11232.pdf
Other important strategies being given high priorities by HR executives in the private sector include:
· Hiring Freeze
· Reductions in Force
· Eliminating or reduce hiring of seasonal workers
· Organization-wide restructuring
· Salary Freeze
· Raising employee contributions to health care premiums
· Increasing communication to employees about their pay and benefits
· Restricting travel
· Eliminating or reducing training and other employee programs
What are public sector employers doing to meet the challenges of the economic crisis? Traditionally, government has been thought to be recession proof, but that is proving to be less true in the current environment, perhaps because the intersections between government and business have increased. Governments have spent the last several decades examining ways of improving efficiency and being more business driven without losing sight of the essential core of government – public service.
We are confronted with what many say is unprecedented in recent memory, in terms of what is required of managers and leaders in government. Will public sector employers act on this opportunity for change, or wait to react to pressures from the environment, mainly in the form of public opinion? Attention to accountability and strategies to improve services and cost efficiency, as always, remain at the heart of the matter.
[Thank you Compensation Force for the tip on the Watson Wyatt Report.]
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