Let's be honest. Whatever your profession or vocation, compensation is an important component in job satisfaction. With the exception, no doubt, of some admirable, selfless volunteers, most of us like to get paid for what we do. If we like what we do as well, that's a bonus, and an important one.
This is the message underlined in an interesting survey conducted among readers of SearchCIO and SearchCIO-Midmarket. Just as well, because it seems that salaries of senior-to-midlevel CIOs have not been holding up well in the current economic climate. Compared with 2010, total compensation in 2011 was eroded by reductions in bonuses, stock options, and benefits, while salary itself stayed relatively flat.
There also seems to be some concern that CIO salaries are not in line with the salaries of business-line executives sitting in the C-Suite. A hangover, perhaps, from the all-too-recent days when IT was viewed exclusively as a back-office service department.
Midmarket CIOs, in particular, needed to look elsewhere than their paypackets to find workplace motivation. Most CIOs earning less than $90,000 per year were from the midmarket segment (more than half of all surveyed earned between $90,000 and $150,000).
Expectations for a salary increase in 2011 were certainly not met in the midmarket. While there was an across-the-board expectation of a 5.2 percent increase in basic salary, almost 60 per cent of midmarket CIOs were greeted by increases between 2 and 5 percent.
It's surprising to find a silver lining in this relative gloom, but many midmarket CIOs reported finding satisfaction in factors other than compensation. For midmarket, senior-level IT executives, "good relationships with the business, challenging projects and the appreciation of bosses and peers are major drivers of true job satisfaction," the survey found. One interviewed CIO remarked that he was gratified to be able to focus on building the business rather than dealing with "the horrors of corporate reporting."
Reading between the lines of this and other surveys, there seems to be an interesting tension in the way senior midmarket IT executives experience their roles. On the one hand, lean staffing can result in IT leadership plowing hours into the kinds of hands-on project management tasks ideally better delegated.
On the other hand, if time for planning strategic innovation is tight, there may nevertheless be better opportunities to implement exciting -- potentially game-changing -- proposals in the midmarket enterprise. Open lines of communication with company leadership, allied with a mutual interest in containing costs while increasing agility, surely create an environment in which new initiatives in business analytics or cloud computing, for example, can flourish.
If midmarket IT leaders are not quite keeping up with the corporate big boys when it comes to payday, the chances are that their most exciting ideas are not quite as likely to vanish into committee-bound, corporate limbo.
Re: "One interviewed CIO remarked that he was gratified to be able to focus on building the business rather than dealing with 'the horrors of corporate reporting.'"
I found this passage particularly compelling. I recently came across a survey fo IT professionals (not just CIOs), of whom a vast majority said they spend the majority of their time working on the day-to-day "keeping the lights" on type of work rather than exploring new ways to build the business and the organization and make it more efficient -- but that they would *rather* be able to spend more of their time doing the latter.
Give somebody a cool job rather than drudgery, and they may well be okay indeed with making a few bucks less.
I can't say that I am surprised. You need to have a passion for the mid market and a lot depends on how you got there. Having come from a Fortune 25 to mid- market, I enjoyed the freedom and ability to deliver. However, after a few years, the structure and challenge of a global environment ( and associated paycheck) brought me back to a larger business. If you grew into the role and have not had other experience, the environment and pay are good....and there can be a lot of fun!
In this economy it would figure that anyone with a job is going to hang in there and be "satisfied" which what they can get salarywise. CIO's most likely enjoy their work, and it's almost a "I'd work for free to do this" scenario in some minds.
As long as the news reports high unemployment rates, folks are going to enjoy their current job and pay. But watch out when things take a turn and employers are forced to pay the big bucks for talent.
Interesting, I actually thought that CIO's were payed more than that in the mid-market. As for satisfaction, if you work hard enough to achieve the position of CIO, chances are that you like what you do.
Interesting blog and analysis. I tend to agree with what you suggest here, "A hangover, perhaps, from the all-too-recent days when IT was viewed exclusively as a back-office service department." Otherwise it's surprising to read about salaries like that in the C-suite.
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