How can the company, itself affected by inflation, respond to the decline in the purchasing power of its employees? About twenty human resources managers shared their answers to this central question on Tuesday, October 11 in Paris, on the occasion of the HR Meetings, a monthly management news meeting organized by The worldin partnership with ManpowerGroup and Malakoff Humanis.
In the introduction, Mathieu Plane drew up a macroeconomic picture of the current climate: a “unprecedented shock, linked to the Covid crisis, the very strong recovery that followed, then the war in Ukraine and its consequences on the energy market”summarized the economist, deputy director of the analysis and forecasting department of the French Observatory of economic conditions.
The result is known to all: a general increase in prices, lasting, which costs, according to the researcher, 3 points of gross domestic product in France. And if the State absorbs part of these costs, “there are 30 to 40 billion euros left: should companies see their margins reduced, or should employees see their salaries not increase as much as inflation? “.
Seen from this prism, the question is indeed a balance of power which appears between employees and employers, and which is inexorably tense. If wages increase significantly, with a monthly base salary increase of 3.1% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2022, inflation exceeds 5%, finally reminds Mr. Plane.
First general increase in ten years
To catch up, the general increases are at the center of the mandatory annual negotiations (NAO), and most HRDs say they have put the means in this regard for a year. In the food industry, at the Bel Group, “on the NAO at the start of the year, we have already doubled our increase budget, and we resumed exchanges in September”explains Jérémy Sourd, performance and HR coordination manager.
At SFIL, a public bank of the Caisse des dépôts group, a general increase has been decided, the first in ten years of existence (combined with bonuses), departing from a tradition of considerable individual increases. To retain its employees, the consulting firm Wavestone says it has carried out a complete overhaul of its salary scale in the summer of 2022.
As managers speak out, it appears that the situations are heterogeneous, and that not all companies have the same envelopes available, as evidenced by Solène Hébert, HRD at Harmonie Mutuelle: “We are being asked to act on the salary as such, but Harmonie will not be able to finance everything this year…” All agree on a strategy of small steps, where increases follow one another every three or six months.
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