Survey shows an increase in recruitment for senior roles.
There has been an increase in recruitment across a number of sectors, particularly in senior roles. This is according to the recruitment company Robert Walters, which has published its annual salary survey.
The survey, which dates back 20 years, covers 31 countries including South Africa.
Jason Grundy, managing director for Middle East and Africa at Robert Walters, says businesses are expected to continue to be conservative when it comes to salary increases.
“Overall salaries are to remain static and in certain areas, reduced. Professionals looking to increase their earnings most likely would need to seek new opportunities, however, new starters should still expect conservative increases when moving roles,” he said.
In terms of the outlook for South Africa for 2022, Jason notes that the pandemic and global crisis naturally resulted in an immediate downturn in hiring, with a shift from functions promoting growth and expansion, towards functions supporting stability, cash flow, and essential services.
“Cost-saving measures, reallocation of current resources and critical hires, which promote the streamlining of business operations have been evident,” he says. “We foresee organisations taking a flexible approach to benefits packages as a way of retaining top talent. These benefits would likely include measures to support the new operating model, such as work from home.”
Survey data shows that an HR director or executive in the human resources sector can benchmark a salary range of between R1.8 million and R3.2 million, while an HR manager or head of HR falls into the R1.2 million to R1.8 million salary range.
However, the top earners in South Africa remain group or regional CFOs at finance companies, who earn upwards of R2.6 million annually. In other companies, finance directors at companies outside the finance sector can expect a baseline amount of R1.5 million annually.
Salaries are primarily focused on professionals, so government officials for example, do not feature in the report. In addition, salaries are generally based on those with more than 10 years of working experience and do not take incentives or other rewards into account.
