Salary Survey 2011: Half Full or Half Empty?

Nancy Bartels is Control's managing editor. You can her at nbartels@putman.net or check out her Google+ profile.

This year is the twenty-first time we've surveyed our readers about their salary, benefits, working conditions and the state of the process automation industry as they see it. In many respects, the responses are remarkably similar from year to year. In spite of economic turbulence, salary numbers, bonuses paid, hours worked and general conditions have remained steady or slightly improved. Even many of the complaints seem the same from year to year.

How Big a Piece of the Pie?

In spite of economic anxiety and some frustration, process automation is still, comparatively speaking, a well-paying gig. Seventy-six percent of our respondents have a gross annual salary of more than $60,000 a year, about the same as last year. A little more than half of those (35%) earn more than $100,000. That's up 8% over last year (Figure 1). This seeming anomaly may be explained by the fact that every year, the age of our respondents goes up, meaning they get higher on the seniority level. This year, 60% of our respondents were over 45. Last year, only 53% were there.

Who's getting all the benjamins?

Figure 1. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed are making more than $100,000 up 8% from last year, reflecting the continuing aging—and growing seniority— of the process automation talent pool.

Raises—or lack thereof—are a pain point for many of our respondents. A whopping 83% reported a raise of $4000 or less this year, and 36% said they got less than $1000—if they got a raise at all. That's better than last year, when 88% reported small raises, 54% of them less than $1000. On the other hand, a fortunate few took home raises of anywhere from $11,000 to $25,000 (Figure 2).

A little more in the wallet—but not a lot

Figure 2. Raises were  little more generous this year. Only 36% reported a raise of less than $1000 this year, down from 54% last year, but 83% still reported raises of less than $4000.

If the improving economy is ending up in our responders' paychecks anywhere, it's in a bonus. Sixty-six percent got bonuses in addition to salary (up from 57% last year), ranging from under 2% of their salary (24%) to the lucky 18% who got more than 15% of their salary as an extra check (Figure 3).

Bonus Babies

Figure 3.  Sixty-six percent of respondents got a bonus this year, up 9% from last year. They ranged from less than 2% to more than 15% of base salary.

The type of benefits offered remains pretty much unchanged (Figure 4). Eighty-nine percent of our respondents say they get medical benefits; last year 90% said they did. Dental insurance is actually up to 73% this year, from 71% last year. Company-provided life insurance coverage remains at 75%, and both disability insurance and pension plans are a little better; the number receiving a pension plan is up to 48% this year compared to last (44%), and those with disability insurance also increased four percentage points from 58% last year to 62% this year.

Basic benefits

Figure 4. The basic benefits profile remains largely unchanged, but respondents report paying more for less coverage.

So What's the Problem?

Things are looking a bit better than last year on the overall compensation front—or at least no worse. So what's the problem? A recurring complaint is that pension and 401K plans aren't providing the kind of long-term security people would like, and that health care is costing individuals more and providing less in return. As of last year, many complain that increasing costs eat up any raises they may have earned. As one of our respondents said, "There seems to be downward pressure on wages, and benefits are costing more and/or decreasing. Despite a 6% raise last year, my medical insurance costs increased 4%, and the coverage was not as good."

There's also the sense that, even as the economy is improving, none of that improvement is showing up in respondents' paychecks. As one respondent says, "Employers seemed to take advantage of the recession to lower their bottom lines. Now that jobs and profits are coming back, the wages and benefits aren't."

The lack of pension plans or 401K co-contributions is a sore point on its own, but it's exacerbated by a general anxiety about any alternative safety net. One of our respondents put it this way: "I don't like loosing my pension contribution from the company. With the government failure in Social Security, I am depending on company retirement and 401K more."

The strain of longer hours and less overtime is telling as well. Three-fourths (73%) of our respondents do not get overtime in spite of working more than 40 hours a week. That's down a little from last year, when 75% reported that they got no overtime. On the other hand, 63% got four weeks or more of vacation each year. Fully one-third got more than four weeks, and another 30% had a month off. What we didn't ask, however, is how many of them feel free to take all that time away (Figure 5).

Play Time
Figure 5.  Sixty-three percent of our respondents get a month or more of
vacation every year, another reflection of their growing seniority.

Tired of It All

Make no mistake, the last three years have been tough, and it's starting to wear on our respondents. It's the optional comments that tell the story the numbers alone mask. Our respondents are tired—tired of being asked to do more with less; of living with frozen salaries while taking pension and benefit cuts; and of having overtime cut. They're frustrated by returning company profits that never seem to trickle down into either their paychecks or spending on improvements that would ultimately make them more efficient or improve the bottom line.

One of our readers summed it up this way: "The past couple years have been quite profitable for my employer. Yet they continue to increase employee workloads, rather than hire additional resources, citing economic uncertainty as the reason."