Benefits February 13, 2003

Comp, Benefit Manager Salary Differences Enlarge

February 13, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Salaries for benefits managers continue to lag behind those of their compensation colleagues.
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Compensation managers earn an average of 7.7% morethan their benefits counterparts.   Interestingly, a compensation and benefits manager is paid less than the compensation manager ($85,300 versus$91,300, respectively), but more than the benefits manager ($84,800), according to 1,084 companies polled in the 2000-2002 editions of the Human Resource Management Compensation Survey.

The gap has become more pronounced at the executive level over the last year.   In 2002, the compensation executive earned $140,000 while the benefits official took home $130,400, a difference of 7.4%.  The gap is especially prominent when noted that human resource pay increases were modest in 2002, mirroring nationwide wage increases of  under 4%. 

Results of the survey are based on an analysis conducted for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans by human resource consultants at Mercer Human Resource Consulting in conjunction with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

The analysis of these pay discrepancies is scheduled for publication in the March 2003 issue of the International Foundation’s Employee Benefits Journal.  

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