It was a great pleasure to host our first face to face event since 2019 last night, our Salary Guide Launch, with Nina Michels-Kim, CMA, CSCA from IMA | Institute of Management Accountants as our co-host. Thank to Nina for visiting us all the way from Switzerland and explaining the benefits of the US CMA qualification to our network. Thanks to William Cruz for expertly project managing the event.
Our 2023 Salary Guide is now available, please get in touch if you would like a copy. The data includes breakdowns for salaries for Country Manager, Accounting and Finance, Supply Chain and Logistics and HR Roles. The Guide also includes breakdowns of responses to questions around what has changed in the last few years with regards to working hours, stress levels, relationships with other employees etc.
As is usually the case in Japan, client company demand is significantly higher than candidate supply. More than 80% of our survey responders saw salaries increase, we have seen so far this year that when candidates move they are able to receive salary increases in the range of 5-20%.
Some interesting points from our survey were that responders clearly stated that their most valued factor in the workplace was not salary, work style or work life balance but company culture (good relationships with fellow employees) at 29% closely followed by career progression and vision at 27%.
It is not a surprise to see that 68% of responders prefer either full flexibility on work from home or hybrid work style.
One big change that work from home has brought is that we have new work colleagues - our spouses, partners, children and pets in many cases. On some days this can be heaven and some days it can be hell.
Remember when Teams interviews happen these days interviewers and interviewees spouses, partners and children can often hear the whole interview. One of our candidates last week received a high pressure grilling interview from one of our clients and decided afterwards not to move to the next step because her husband listened in to the whole interview and did not want her to move forward with the company.
Creating Company Culture
Work from home or hybrid work style has become the norm but within that the big challenge seems to be how to create company culture, how to foster connection and communication to help teams reach high performance.
I don’t have all the answers on how to do this and this has been a challenge for our business.
We now come together once a month in the office on the last day of the month and the key aim of that day is to foster face to face connection and communication with our teams. We had a one day company trip to Minakami facilitated by Cory McGowan and the sole purpose of the trip was to be together to communicate face to face away from screens, build connection and have fun through play. I am sure we have all had similar challenges and we all have different solutions that we can share.
I saw this posted on Linkedin last week and it resonated with me as our key challenge as leaders is and always really has been the below.
Keep people involved
Keep people informed
Keep people interested
Keep people inspired
Please get in touch for a copy of our Salary Guide 2023 and we hope you can join us at our next event.
