Voluntary sector recruitment difficulties 'declining'
Howard Lake | 24 November 2003 | News
Remuneration Economics’ 15th Annual Voluntary Sector Salary Survey (AVSS) reports that fewer organisations are experiencing staff recruitment problems.
The survey by the salary survey publishing company reports that the percentage of respondent organisations that said they had experienced staff recruitment problems has decreased from 65.9% last year to 59.5%.
The survey also reports that salaries have increased by an average rate of 6.1%. This is a return to the rate of increase in salaries recorded in 2001, after a drop to 4.7% last year.
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However, despite average pay increases of 6.1%, twice the level of the sector’s average
general pay award of 3.1%, voluntary
organisations’ staff retention problems have worsened: over half of the sector has experienced these, up from 41% in 2002 to 55% in 2003. The main reason given for not being able to hold onto staff is a perceived lack of career progress.
Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of NCVO, said: “A perceived lack of career prospects continues to undermine staff retention. In a difficult economic climate
voluntary organisations must consider how they can offer the kind of personal and career development opportunities that will enable them to hold on to staff.”
Jennie Saunders from Remuneration Economics said: ‘This year we have seen organisations prepared to award very substantial increases in salary on an individual basis, far in excess of the general pay award implemented across the organisation as a whole. This seems to be driven by the need to retain key personnel at a time when recruiting staff with the necessary skills is increasingly
problematic.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.