Deloitte Ukraine and the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine presented the 2020 Salary Survey results

As many companies around the world have been hit by the COVID-19 crisis, the unemployment rate has almost doubled compared to last year. Deloitte Ukraine, jointly with the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, conducted the survey on the potential salaries in 2020 to explore how the current crisis has affected the annual salary review and talent management processes.

The study examines the impact of the pandemic on the global economy and, in particular, on the activities of Ukrainian companies, analyses approaches of the Ukrainian businesses to employee remuneration and staff cost management, as well as planning their return to work.

In total, 22 companies participated in the survey conducted from 1 to 19 June. The survey respondents included almost half (45%) of top management and HR Directors, and 36% of middle management, HR managers, HR leaders, and finance function representatives.

“We are grateful to everyone who participated in the study that was conducted jointly with the Human Capital Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. It is the opportunity to exchange practices and ideas that is extremely useful for companies in the process of finding their own approaches to human resource management in the context of a changing environment amid the pandemic,” commented Olena Boichenko, Director of Human Capital Advisory Services at Deloitte Ukraine.

Key takeaways

• Forty-four percent of respondents believe their organizations will be able to achieve their business targets for 2020. More than half of organizations (63%) plan to or have already revised monthly/quarterly/annual performance targets for employees due to the pandemic outbreak and economic downturn;
• Half of respondents plan to or have already conducted the regular salary reviews without changing the remuneration amounts, and almost a third of respondents (23%) have postponed salary reviews for at least one category of employees;
• Most often, the decrease in salary reviews occurred for top management and office workers, and the increase – for production workers;
• A wide majority of respondents did not conduct any unscheduled salary reviews either to decrease or increase the employees’ salaries;
• Half of surveyed companies with short-term incentive programs plan to pay bonuses to employees without changes;
• More than 80% of companies are developing or have already developed a post-quarantine action plan, and only 9% have not started working on it yet. As the post-quarantine actions, most of the survey respondents plan to adapt their offices to ensure social distancing in the workplace, strengthen safety measures, provide employees with additional means of protection, and allow personnel to work from home; 
• Sixty-four percent of companies plan to maintain the current number of staff and only 14% of respondents will resort to workforce reduction for at least one category of employees.

“The Human Capital Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, in partnership with AmCham member company Deloitte, conducted the survey on the impact of coronavirus on salary reviews to help AmCham member companies to adjust their business plans and streamline business processes during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are grateful to the Deloitte team for their professional expertise and we will continue working to support our companies,” commented Tetiana Prokopchuk, Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.”