Compensation across the financial services industry

Attraction and retention remain challenging for organizations worldwide

Organizations grapple with sourcing talent for major roles at every level

Major roles employers plan to hire for in the next 12 months

Salary budget increases continued in 2023

Because salary impacts an organization's ability to attract and retain talent, this pattern is expected to continue in 2024, but employers will be cautious about allocating their salary budget.

Employers (60% or more) in every industry worldwide have taken or are considering taking the following measures:

• Compensation review of specific employee populations
• Full compensation review for all employees
• Targeted increases for specific employee populations
• Hire people higher in relevant salary range

Top 3 functions at professional level (P3) with the highest pay across all industries*

A few skills will receive the highest pay premiums across regions

Ten percent increase in the number of unique organizations participating in WTW’s 2023 Financial Services industry surveys, and a 7.5% overall increase in data submissions.

Trends expected to shape 2024 rewards decisions

1. 01

   The ask of employees on their employers is ever increasing, which means organizations need to have the right employee listening strategies in place to be able to react to and develop an employee offering that meets their employees' requirements while still driving business objectives. Particularly for banks, the industry has not yet regained a preferred-industry status so they have to outperform other industries in their attraction of talent.

2. 02

   Salary budgets are expected to be lower than 2023 levels but still higher than many countries have typically seen for a number of years. Organizations will need to be smart around how to differentiate within their populations when allocating the salary budget pot – considering market competitiveness and internal competitiveness – which of course includes pay transparency.

3. 03

   Legislation driving pay transparency to the top of the reward agenda. , and for an organization It is critical to begin the discussion around preparing for the incoming transparency legislation now: you need time to set/review the infrastructure (e.g. levelling), you want time to do the gap analysis at least one year before making it public, so you can take actions ahead in order for you to really show-off best when you go public on this.