Big increases for top executives

Press, 10 September 1985, Page 1

Big increases for top executives

Top executives in the private sector have had pay increases averaging 54 per cent in the last' four years, according to information given to the State Services Commission.

Christchurch employment agencies who recruit senior executives confirmed yesterday that 54 per cent increases had occurred in Christchurch, although the level of salaries was lower, according to one. The manager of Wareham Executive, Mr Michael Stenhouse, said that companies had taken the view that “if you’ve got good people you’ve got to look after them,” Christchurch suffered generally from a shortage of skilled managers in marketing, data processing, accounting, and finance, he said.

The manager of Key Executive, Mrs June Langley, said that the increases had been larger after the wage freeze. Fifty-four per cent represented a good average of the increases that had occurred, she said. The Christchurch branch manager of Drake Executive, Mrs Marion Lomax, said that good personal secretaries were also able to command higher salaries now than 12 months ago. They could earn between $lB,OOO and $20,000 a year,

compared with about $15,000 to $16,000 a year ago, she said. High salaries are paid to people because of the skills and experience they have, and the salaries may also compensate for unsocial work hours, for having to be “on call” if anything goes wrong, and for stress. Mr Michael Keenan, a consultant psychologist with Gilmour, Keenan and Associates, of Wellington, said that he was aware of some very high salaries in top management in the private sector. He knew of some who were getting more than $lOO,OOO a year and others whose salaries were creeping even higher when consideration was given to the total remuneration package.

Mr Keenan holds stressproofing workshops throughout New Zealand. He said that while people at all levels experienced stress from their job, top management did have very real sources of stress that people at other levels did not have. While executives in the private sector had an average pay increase of 54 per cent in the last four years, State Service executives had a 23.5 per cent average increase between April, 1981, and April, this year, according to the chairman of the State Services Commission, Dr Mervyn Pro-

Dr Probine said the Higher Salaries Commission determination would bring the salaries of top State servants into fair relativity with top executives in the private sector, the Press Association reports. It also provided a more flexible system with the opportunity for greater rewards for those senior public servants, below permanent head level, who demonstrated sustained high performance, he said.

Dr Probine said the size of the rises must be seen in the light that it was the first review of senior State salaries since 1981.

The process was one of aligning remuneration of State employees with their private sector counterparts, rather than looking at the percentage change itself, he said.

Dr Probine said he now hoped there would be a return to comparative normality in State pay-fixing. “The wage freeze was a gross distortion of the normal pay-fixing process and it has cost us dearly in the Public Service,” he said. If the freeze had held as well in the private sector as it had in the public sector the damage to the Public Service would probably not have been too great.