Bonuses top increases

Increasingly it seems, salaried staff are getting bonuses, often at the sacrifice of salary increases according to the latest NZ salary survey from Cubiks, formerly PA Consulting’s assessment and development practice.
The study reveals that the increase in total remuneration, including bonuses and commission payments, for both top executives and general staff is substantially higher than base salary increases.
“We identified this change as growing trend in our last survey,” Kevin McBride, country head of Cubiks said. “The average value of bonuses received has increased, suggesting that more often executives are sacrificing base salary increases for larger ?at risk’ or performance payments.”
The NZ salary survey is run twice yearly at March 1 and September 1 and has over 500 different organisations contributing. The survey measures base salary and remuneration movements of more than 300 positions.
The proportion of executives receiving bonuses has increased by just over three percent, with the average bonus 25 percent higher than 12 months ago. More than half the top executives surveyed received bonus averaging $19,650, while third of general staff received bonus averaging just under $4000, an increase of 18 percent.
“These results tend to suggest that, as trading conditions are improving, the constraints on variable pay are being released and more staff are starting to benefit from higher ?at risk’ payments,” says McBride.
Increases in chief executives’ base salaries are still running well ahead of inflation, the survey of 260 CEOs shows. All top executives received on average 5.4 percent base salary increase in the 12 months to March 1 2000, while general staff received 3.9 percent increase.