By Ida Relsted (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-10-26 09:46

Employment benefits are giving firms a competitive edge when it comes to attracting and retaining staff, a survey by Hewitt Associates Consulting (Shanghai) Co Ltd has said.

Paying top dollar is no longer enough, the survey found.

Hewitt, which specializes in human resources outsourcing and consulting, said organizations are rethinking their strategies in an attempt to lure and retain personnel.

The company's Beecher Ashley-Brown said multinationals in Shanghai now offer packages that include not just decent salaries, but company cars, housing loans and stocks.

The survey found that even though pay and benefits are on the rise, employees are dissatisfied.

Just 28 percent of those surveyed said they were happy with their pay, while 42 percent said they had a good chance of advancing their careers at their present firm.

Thirty-seven percent said their performance had a significant impact on their salaries.

Although new ways of rewarding staff are being adopted, salaries have still risen by an average of 9.4 percent this year. Last year, the hike was 8.2 percent.

The survey said the top five reasons why people quit their jobs are: A perception of limited opportunities for advancement, better pay elsewhere, a dislike of their boss, disagreements over performance assessments and a lack of new challenges.

The industry that suffers most from low staff retention rates is hi-tech manufacturing. Marketing and salespeople were also apt to move on, while the auto industry had the lowest turnover rate of 14.9 percent, the survey said.

"We found that despite the large population the talent pool of white-collar workers is limited," Ashley-Brown said.

"So although China is regarded as a low-cost country, it still has a relatively expensive workforce."

The survey was based on responses from 650 companies, 97 percent of which were multinationals, with the remainder Chinese.