Mid-tier execs take home the best hikes

NEW DELHI: AS the race for talent hots up, middle-level executives are laughing their way to the bank. The mid-tier — always under the scanner of start-ups scouting for potential heads — has bagged the best increments this year so far, according to a study by ABC Consultants. Sure, India Inc’s strawberry spring has ensured that the top guns too get a solid piece of the cake.

As per the survey, middle-level managers have been doled out hikes of around 15-20% as against 10-15% for senior managers across sectors, barring retail where top honchos rule the roost.

However, the top brass has been compensated with more performance-linked compensation tools such as bonuses and variable salary. The message seems loud and clear — retain the middle level by hiking their fixed components and push the senior leadership to perform with hefty bonuses.

Says Monisha Advani, CEO of EmmayHR, which is part of Dutch employment services giant Randstad, “This is more of a BRIC economy phenomenon. Dearness of middle management has impacted salary costs in India. We are witnessing salary hikes between 30% and blue sky. At the senior level, the padding of compensations with ESOPs or similar programmes has been resurrected. Also, bonuses within traditional sectors like manufacturing and life sciences have seen a jump, making packages far more competitive than before.”


In fact, there are several companies that are increasingly becoming variable-driven and moving away from relying purely on fixed cash components. “As far as we are concerned it’s all about bonuses and variable pay. If the company is performing well, the employees are rewarded accordingly. It’s only the new players in the sector who are giving hefty increments as they are in attraction mode,” says Mr Sanjay Jog, Head-HR, Pantaloon Retail India.

Top performers in Pantaloon received around 25% increment, but variable payouts in the retail major scaled up to as much as 90%. And it’s not only the top brass which is being given performance incentives in the form of stock options, but the middle and front-line employees are also in for some goodies.

At Dabur, for instance, the sales team is rewarded with laptops once the targets are met. “We had to make mid-term corrections for the middle management or else we would have lost good people at this level to other sectors such as FMCG and banking,” says Mr A Shridhar, executive vice-president- HR, Dabur India.

“The middle management is seeing higher jumps and better increments across sectors because they could be potential heads for many smaller start-ups and are therefore, easily poachable,” says Mr Shiv Agrawal, CEO, ABC Consultants.

Even in the financial sector, the trend of middle-level professionals being awarded better increment stays this year. “We believe that the seniors should play an important role in making the middle and junior management grow and therefore, the difference in the increments,” says Mr K Ramkumar, head, human resources, ICICI Bank .

At ICICI Bank, this year, a top performing middle management employee got as much as 30% increment while a top performer at the senior level received 20% hike. “Also, the junior and middle level professionals prefer disposable cash instead of stock options, although we give the provision of stock ops from the middle management level itself,” adds Mr Ramkumar of ICICI.