4 Key Compensation Trends in 2017

From the rising share of compensation that's tied to achieving performance goals to prohibitions on asking about salary history, these articles on pay topics were some of the most-read all year on SHRM Online. They describe developments that will have a continuing impact in 2018. With salary increase budgets expected to remain at 3 percent for 2018, more employers are focusing on variable pay to differentiate rewards for high-performers. Comprehensive variable reward programs emphasize incentive-reward payouts for meeting individual, team and organizationwide goals, and de-emphasize—or eliminate—raising salaries annually to reward performance. One consequence of this trend is that variable pay plans are pushing aside holiday bonuses.