By Georgina Wilcox

Last Friday (6) officials from PwC and the Cayman Islands Society of Human Resource Professionals (CISHRP) announced the launching of Cayman’s first compensation and benefits survey.

Alistair McNeish, Managing Director of PwC, said the survey is a critical tool to attract, motivate and retain staff in an increasingly competitive environment.

“Statistics from a whole number of elements are showing that the retention of key staff and high performing staff is the issue that companies usually struggle and worry about. By not having access to current compensation data, you’re really lining yourself up for a fall,” he said.

Both PwC and CISHRP said there was a need to have an industry specific report in the Cayman Islands that would help the financial services sector address their compensation policies.

The survey will be used to provide detailed compensation information on employees working in banks, financial and professional services, law firms, insurance companies, and other sectors in the Cayman Islands. It will provide detailed information covering compensation information for each position benchmarked, industry-specific compensation information, benefits policies and market analysis.

Data will be collected on annual base salary, bonus, housing, car and travel allowances, other cash compensation and incentives covering five sectors, including banks, financial services, law firms, insurance and captive insurance companies, and professional services and management companies.

Business professionals and company leaders are, however, concerned how the company plans to keep this data confidential and from getting in the wrong hands. McNeish said confidentiality is critical and the company will do everything they can to guaranty their clients that the company data collected will not be public.

“We’ve been running the survey in Bermuda for 10 to 12 years now”, he said, “with no breaches of confidentiality. The data in the relationship is between PwC and the contracting company. The data is not shown or given to individual employees at all; it’s ringed-fenced as much as possible.” The data processing and data retention will all take place in Bermuda to protect and retain confidentiality.

The deadline for data submission for the new Cayman Islands survey is April 30th. It is expected the survey will be distributed by July.

The fee for receiving this data will be CI$1,500 and McNeish said this is lower than is charged in Bermuda. He will send out a formal invitation via email on Monday (9) asking companies to take part, he added.

However, the Cayman Islands’ Chamber of Commerce/KRyS Global fifth salary and benefits survey will be completed this month and theirs is free.

IMAGE: blog.hortica-insurance.com