Almost half of organisations in the UK no longer award employees an across the board annual pay rise or cost of living adjustment, according to this year’s Annual Reward Management survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Manufacturing, production and private sector service firms are the least likely to provide such a pay rise. But the decline in the yearly traditional pay rise seems to be spreading throughout employment sectors.

The Prime Minister has announced new plans to abandon annual pay negotiations in favour of a three yearly settlement for public sector workers. It is likely that the current trend to allocate pay budgets to departmental heads to distribute among staff based on individual and or collective contribution, rather than as an across the board rise, will extend to public sector bodies.

The survey also revealed that 70 per cent of organisations use cash based bonuses or incentive plans. Broken down by sector 86 per cent of organisations in the manufacturing and production sector, 89 per cent in private sector services and 30 per cent of voluntary and public sector services provide cash based bonuses.

The survey is availablefrom the CIPD. www.cipd.co.uk