Salary survey shows businesses are exercising caution

No news is good news, apparently, Certainly in the case of this year’s local Salary Survey that is the case.

Last year there was a levelling out of salary increments following two or three years of quite severe dips and troughs across different industries.

But this year’s Peterborough Local Market Survey, which we produce in partnership with specialist reward consultants PayData Ltd, shows a ‘cautious’ response to the economic conditions.

While a quarter of participants revealed they had frozen pay, the survey revealed an overall average 2.5 per cent rise in salaries over the past 12 months.

That suggests a plateau has been reached. Rather than companies trying to bring salary levels back in line or attract staff in certain areas, they now seem to be rewarding loyalty and hard work while keeping one eye on costs.

There are always the odd discrepancies in this type of survey. Advanced accounts clerks have notched up around 12 per cent extra in their pay packets while marketing assistants, IT assistants and production managers have noticed a small slip. But having studied the results, I suspect these blips could be more related to the shift in our sample. Some new businesses signed up to take part in this year’s salary which is always good news.

The survey is such a valuable benchmarking tool - one which has been part of the business landscape for 15 years – it is good to see the continuing involvement of some big names.

We are now working on the production of an interim report, concentrating on pay rises, to be produced in the new year. If you would like to take part do get in touch with us.

By participating in the full survey next year your company is entitled to see the entire results document. There is also the option to receive a comparison of your results against those of others.

ACR team offers help to future doctors and tattoo artists!

With so much talk about high levels of youth unemployment it was an absolute pleasure to see enthusiasm and ambition is still prevalent among young people.

Six of our team took part in an event organised by the Rotary Club of Peterborough, aimed at giving youngsters an opportunity to try out their interview skills in a formal environment.

The year 11 students from Kings School had to submit a CV with covering letter and then spend half an hour with one of our recruitment partners, talking about their chosen career path, answering questions and demonstrating their knowledge.

We gave them feedback at the end of the session and also provided written feedback to the school to give them a focus for future career discussion.

It was brilliant to hear of the diverse plans the 15 and 16 year olds had. Among the careers they are working towards were doctor, teacher, vet, figure skater, actor, pr and tattoo artist!

The standard overall was very high with the students presenting themselves well, communicating clearly and demonstrating a good level of background knowledge.

We were able to suggest tweaks to CVs and covering letters which, we hope, will give the students some valuable advice to call on in the future.

In total, around 150 students were given the benefit of professional advice. That’s 150 youngsters who have got that scary first interview out of the way and can now face job and university interviews with the benefit of experience!