With no pay hikes in sight, are UAE’s top performing employees running out of patience?

With none or minimal pay hikes over the past few years, employees across the world, including those in the UAE, learned to live with non-monetary ways of recognition from the company.

These sops, aimed at retaining the performers and keeping them reasonably motivated, included corporate gestures such as flexible work-schedules, lateral promotions, and additional authority.

Increasingly, however, such top performing employees are now running out of patience, asking employers to show them the money, and something which comes every month in the paycheque rather than intangible benefits.

Emirates 24|7 spoke with several local employees, all of who unanimously stated that while they have been patiently waiting for a pay hike from their company, that patience may be fast running out, making them want to look out for ‘greener pastures’ in the market.

Just the idea of being happy to have a job is no longer acceptable to employees.

“I’ve heard this time and again,” said a German photographer living in Dubai. “We were thankful to have a job during the worst years, but this happiness knows its bounds. As the economy improves, we have witnessed an increase in our rental outgo, schooling costs and overall living expenses. I was happy to have a job, but it doesn’t pay for my children’s ever increasing school fees now,” she added.

Recruitment experts believe employers are likely to feel the pressure as more jobs become available in the market.

“With increasing demand of new job opportunities in the region, UAE employers are certainly feeling the pressure to ensure salary increases or bonuses are paid to staff, especially as these staff have been loyal during the difficult times of 2009-2011,” Jennifer Campori, Managing Director, Middle East and Europe at Charterhouse Partnership, told Emirates 24|7.

However, experts believe no pay hikes or marginal increases have coincided with low cost of living, in effect not upsetting the financial positions of employees in a big way.

“We cannot really talk of stagnant pay. As we have mentioned several times, increases in the salaries depend on the person, the company and the industry”

“Also, as prices (especially housing) decreased in the UAE over the past period, the disposable income of the executives had increased, even without a major increase. However, bonuses in several cases were quite good.

“As prices tend to increase, and the economy shows signs of further growth, we expect gradual increases in remunerations as well. However, we do not expect to see dramatic changes in the near future,” explained Konstantina Sakellariou, Partner, Marketing & Operations Director at recruitment consultancy Stanton Chase International.

As dissatisfaction with pay and benefits becomes an issue to deal with for some, they are pragmatically considering a job change.

“Candidates are cautious about making moves. Of course, they are looking for more remuneration, but candidates are also looking for a better package before they will make a move. Candidates, who are with a solid organisation, enjoy their role and the environment, then, most of them are not going to jump ship just for a better salary,” said Campori.

“In an economy where people come to work mainly because of monetary incentives, remuneration is always an issue,” said Sakellariou.

“When the economy is growing and there is movement in the market, it is quite possible for any company to lose employees because of remuneration. Dissatisfaction is quite subjective, as the expectations of many employees are also unrealistic and may not be aligned with the strategy of the company,” she added.

To deal with the pay problem, progressive employers are thinking hard and smart about their salary and benefit offerings – giving hikes where possible and in some cases getting more creative to offset for financial gains they can’t match.

“We have seen a large number of clients requesting advice on salaries for 2013 and the demand to review our salary review for 2013 has been extremely high, which, certainly says clients are looking at the current value of staff. If clients cannot offer monetary increases they are looking at offering more annual leave days, performance based bonuses, flexi-hours and club memberships,” explains the Charterhouse expert.

“Employee retention is a major challenge both in the UAE and all over the world. Attending to employees’ needs and priorities in a creative, productive and efficient way is an issue that needs to be tackled by most companies,” said Sakellariou.

“There are many methods that are being used (employee training, employee satisfaction surveys, motivation techniques etc.), while also understanding the profiles of the people in a company (from age, education, nationality or seniority point of view) is of critical importance for any strategy to work. Still, several times it should be expected that the priorities of an employee and the priorities of a company will not be aligned, no matter how hard both parties try,” she added.

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