by CIO Staff

Pay freezes: have IT staff had enough?

Feature
Aug 04, 20112 mins
CareersIT LeadershipIT Strategy

It appears the UK workforce is beginning to tire of belt-tightening and our ability to endure never-ending pay freezes is starting to falter.

Up to now employees have been more concerned with job satisfaction than pay, but the HR industry body CIPD has released figures that show employees are more likely to move jobs for more pay.

The reason for this is that the continued clamp on pay hikes has eroded employees’ standards of living so much, they feel they have no choice but to look elsewhere for better pay.

CIOs have agreed that sections of their teams are becoming dissatisfied with missing out on pay rises but it depended greatly on the level of seniority, with junior members more likely to see pay as the primary motivator to change jobs. Senior IT staff still seem to see job satisfaction as the highest priority.

Richard Surman, head of IT for Whittalls (owner of Oddbins) said: “This from a personal standing that job satisfaction is still my primary motivator when looking for a new position. I need to feel a sense of achievement in the role that I play within an organisation. Salary is secondary although it is a key motivator as one needs to ensure that the bills can be paid on time.

I had a brief chat with my two remaining staff who reflected my opinion on this matter with salary being a close second to job satisfaction in that they would much prefer the opportunity to develop and grow from both their existing role and from any new role that they may consider to take on.”

I would certainly say that for both myself and my staff that our standards of living has worsened, based upon salary’s having been frozen here for the last 4 years.”

Have you seen a shift in employees’ priorities when considering moving on? Has the need to maintain a standard of living forced you to look for higher pay elsewhere?

Pic: tourist on earthcc2.0

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