Online Exclusive: Show Me the Money
September 18, 2007
More is always better, but your pay this year wasn't shabby, according to Training magazine's 2007 Salary Survey. Trainer salaries are in line with other industries, and slowly gaining strength.
By Margery Weinstein
As you leaf through this month's bills and contemplate looming holiday expenses, you might be a little disappointed with your paycheck. But, as tight as your bank account is, things could be worse, and may be better than you expected. Compared to counterparts in other industries, trainers are holding their own, with an average salary of $81,940 in 2007, up .56 percent from last year, according to Training's Annual Salary Survey.
In the Bell Curve
On the surface, an average annual salary increase of $451 seems paltry, but when you consider that respondents report an average salary increase of 4.2 percent in the last 12 months, things don’t look so bad, says Bill Coleman, senior vice president of compensation for Salary.com. "That's right in the middle of the ballpark for the average American job," he says. More than a reflection of your worth, the slight growth of average trainer pay, and that of professionals in other industries, results from the state of our economy. 'Typically, the average salary across jobs and industries tends to be roughly a percentage point ahead of inflation," Coleman explains. "If your salary increases aren't at or above inflation, you're effectively going backwards. The 'at' is to keep up with the cost of living, and the 'above' is to respond to people's improved performance, and on average, that will be a little better than inflation."
Alongside the state of inflation, your modest salary increase could be the result of more companies choosing to reward stellar performance through end-of-the-year bonuses. In an unpredictable economy, awarding extra money per year, rather than committing to a permanent increase, is your company's safest option. The days in the 1970s when the more experienced among you enjoyed yearly salary gains of as much as 20 percent are over. "For the last 15 years, companies have been moving toward pay for performance where they put more of the variability into a bonus or incentive payment," says Coleman. "There's less emphasis on moving salaries dramatically for strong performers. It's not to say strong performers don't get more—they do—it's just rather than throwing all the compensation for your good performance into the salary bucket, many companies are putting some of that into bonuses, which somewhat dampens the salary increase."
The 58.7 percent of you banking on bonuses this year, then, makes sense (and cents). Besides the trend of awarding bonuses, your faith in an end-of-the-year boost to your personal bottom line results from your good fortune last year, when many of you ended up with the bonuses you bargained on. "In general, it was a pretty good economy [in 2006]," says Coleman, "and people tend to think what happened last year is more likely to happen this year."
Winners (Mostly)
Whatever your salary increase and/or bonus, the value of your job is growing. After the tech bubble burst in 2000, and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred, companies scaled back staffs and hiring. In 2005, that trend reversed, with organizations gearing up again to full strength. Building up staffs requires human resource executives and learning professionals to implement recruitment and training. "Companies have started to grow, and that has created training needs in many organizations," says Coleman. "Companies also are looking more toward succession planning in determining peoples' career paths, and trying to find ways of keeping existing employees engaged and moving forward."
The increase in average trainer executive pay to $131,704—18.2 percent over last year—is another result of the growing importance of learning and development. "As companies grow," Coleman notes, "pay to their executives grows commensurate with the size of the business they're running."
But to gauge how much specific training functions will grow—or whether they will continue growing at all—you have to think about what's important to your company. This is especially true in the case of IT training. The ever-increasing prominence of computer technology in day-to-day operations makes IT training a must, but whether that necessity gets carried out by your team, or a team of third-party specialists, is up for debate. "Is training something more efficiently done externally versus internally?" Coleman says to posit. "Many companies with their IT needs really want it done 'our way,' which makes training a good position to be in."
Another good spot to be in is consulting. It's high times for trainers who've opted for life as a free agent, or as part of a consulting agency. Even with pay up just 1.5 percent, these entrepreneurial learning professionals report an average salary of $115,259. Companies making the investment in bigger training departments still find use of consultants the best option for "short-term projects, or for when there is some specialized knowledge you don't need [on a permanent basis]," says Coleman. Sometimes expert knowledge is needed all the time, but a consultant makes more sense because the trainer needs to teach cutting-edge information or techniques. For an in-house learning director, bogged down with a handful of other responsibilities, keeping up to date in a specialized field can be daunting.
Indeed, the news is encouraging for most of you, but there are disappointing results to report in the health/medical sector, in which the average salary declined 14.6 percent to $79,656. A possible cause of this, Coleman speculates, are the price controls health organizations are putting in place. "Prices to the consumer often are criticized, and medical centers are doing what they can to cut costs," he says. Since employers typically don't cut salaries, he says, the decline is more likely the result of "reductions in staff, or retirement, people leaving and not being replaced, or being replaced by lower-level [employees]."
All in all, smile. Salaries are going your way—a little slower than you'd like, but still going. "Companies are looking more toward training as a way to save money over time," says Coleman. "By committing to training, they're committing to improving their workforce."
Sidebar: Dollar Do's
No matter the salary, who among us wouldn't like to inject a dose of growth hormones into our paycheck? Bill Coleman, senior vice president of compensation for Salary.com, doesn’t have a one-shot remedy, but in lieu of the payday panacea you're waiting for, he has a few suggestions:
• Take your own advice. Just as you would tell your company's employees, communicate effectively with your supervisor for clarity on what's expected of you. This is an especially salient point if you're aiming for an end-of-year bonus. "Make sure you know what your goals are," Coleman advises, "understand how you’re being measured, and then do it."
• Think strategically. "Think big picture. Be aware of what's going on, what your role is, and what the role of your customers is in the organization" to determine future training needs ahead of time. If, for example, "customer retention is a hot-button issue for the CEO, look into ways to have customer satisfaction training," says Coleman. "Think on the front end of where the business is going, rather than waiting for somebody to find you a project."
• Easy does it. "Companies are, on average, growing cautiously. There's a little uncertainty in the stock market, and the Middle East, so there's concern. Companies are looking to grow and expand," but not voraciously, says Coleman. "They are looking for different ways of doing it."
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