Executive Compensation: Are You Being Paid Competitively?

The Association of Executive Search Consultants and Blue Steps recently conducted a compensation survey of 778 of their executive members worldwide, including 53 percent from the Americas, 35 percent from EMEA and 12 percent from Asia Pacific. Some of the interesting findings include:

• 26.5 percent of director-level and above executives report earning an annual base salary between $151K and $200K USD.
• 2.4 percent reported earning an annual base salary above $500K USD.
• 44 percent reported an increase in total compensation over the last fiscal year, while 40.1 percent saw no change in their total compensation.
• 16 percent reported a decrease in total compensation in the last fiscal year.
• 41.8 percent of those who received an increase reported an increase of 1 to 5 percent.
• 26.6 percent of those who received an increase reported an increase of 6 to 10 percent.
• 9.9 percent of those who received an increase reported an increase above 20 percent.

While almost half of executives did experience an increase in total compensation in the last fiscal year, many executives reported concerns about salaries not fairly reflecting strong performance. One executive reported, “Markets have changed since 2008 and compensation is being deliberately managed downwards. Companies are moving towards leaner staffing, increasing the work load on executives without compensating for it.”

Check out the infographic below for some other interesting data from the survey.