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HR Chiefs Are Pricier By The Pound

By Staff Report

May. 10, 2005

British human resources executives pull down the biggest paychecks and easily surpass their U.S. counterparts in both base salary and total cash compensation, according to a new global pay survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting. The HR executive in the United Kingdom also receive a larger portion of their compensation in bonuses and allowances, which account for 23 percent of their total cash, compared with 19 percent of total cash for U.S. HR executives.

Although U.S. companies pay less than U.K. companies for their human resources executives, that’s not the case for U.S. executives in finance, sales and marketing, and supply and logistics. They are the highest-paid in the world. In most countries, the top finance and marketing executives are the highest-paid heads of a function. In the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, however, the head of information technology is the top earner.


 


Annual Compensation (U.S. $) in 2004 for Head of Human Resources
CountryMidrange base salary*Midrange total cash compensation**
Italy$143,996$163,964
Denmark144,781166,171
Hong Kong137,667172,772
Canada136,797177,591
Mexico126,709178,332
Belgium169,847195,318
Germany153,135199,370
Switzerland167,213203,885
United States174,670213,050
United Kingdom184,546231,323
*Monthly salary multiplied by number of months (based on the company policy).
**Includes total annual base salary plus any guaranteed cash and the actual annual short-term incentive amount.

Source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s Global Pay Summary, 2004/2005. Exchange rates as of year-end 2004.


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