The average NSCA member has seven open positions. And, unless we see a softening in the North American economy, it’s unlikely that this pattern will change anytime soon. In other words, our industry needs more talent!
It’s no secret that compensation and benefits can help encourage potential staff members to join your team. Although money isn’t everything, what you offer to prospective employees in terms of compensation and benefits can have a big influence in attracting and retaining top talent.
Setting staff salaries is a tricky task. You want to pay enough to get the best possible talent, but you don’t want to pay too much.
Every four years, NSCA puts a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources into collecting accurate data on industry salaries and benefits. Our goal? To help you uncover wage trends, identify fluctuations in compensation, pinpoint employment trends, and determine appropriate wages for employees.
The data we report on comes directly from you. We work with a third-party market research firm to survey members about company location, staff size, compensation information, benefits information, and a host of other data. All surveys were collected and processed by this third party. This year’s survey was distributed to NSCA members in North America from May 28 through Aug. 1, 2019.
Making up the 2019 report is data from nearly 600 responses – more responses than any other we’ve ever compiled before. This means that the majority of NSCA members chose to report their salary and benefits data. The more data we have to share, the more accurate, helpful, and valuable our information will be!
The resulting Compensation & Benefits Report is the largest, most comprehensive research project done in the industry to date on this subject.
Key Report Findings
The data we gathered this year indicates that health insurance accounts for the greatest financial cost of all benefits. On average, the typical company pays $125,000 per year to offer health insurance. That equates to a median of 1.67% of total gross revenue and a cost of $4,485 per full-time staff member.
Company size is obviously a difference-maker. There are substantial variances in benefits based on company size. Small companies typically lag behind larger companies when it comes to offering benefits. For example, 100% of the mid-sized and large companies we surveyed offer health insurance to all or some employees; of the small companies that responded, only 50.6% offer health insurance.
Sign-on bonuses are the least-common benefit offered, but they’ve made more than a 500% increase from 2014. This could indicate more sign-on bonuses in the future as the industry looks for innovative ways to attract talent.
In terms of raises, these were most commonly seen in the largest companies. All small and mid-sized companies expect a larger percentage of increases in the current year, whereas large companies only show an increase in administrative staff.
The Compensation & Benefits Report also uncovers many other interesting findings, including the impact of recent M&A activity, which has increased the size of NSCA member companies, the number of outsourced projects, and the number of remote employees and/or branch offices. Larger firms with multiple locations create even more competition for top talent.
Obtain your copy of the Compensation & Benefits Report here. It’s free to download for all members and available to non-members for a small fee. If you have questions about how to use the information, send us a note!