Money isn't everything

The average rise in the social housing sector over the past year was 3.9%. That's slightly above inflation, which is currently hovering around the 3% mark. But this average is misleading: it encompasses wide variations across levels and functions.

Chief executives' pay rose faster than those lower down the ranks, building on a trend highlighted in last year's survey (HT 30 May 2002, page 32). But chief executives were also the most likely to receive no pay increase at all. The national median pay rose from £63,100 to £67,698, or 7.3%, but at the bottom of the scale, nursing home managers received just 1.2% more; their average pay rose from £21,650 to £21,904. Top salaries showed the greatest variation, depending not on location but on the size of the association. They ranged from less than £45,656 at RSLs with turnover of less than £2m to more than £102,858 at £20m-plus organisations.

To put these figures into perspective, a Guardian survey last year found that the average salary for local authority chief executives, who typically run much larger organisations than their RSL counterparts, was £103,860. Private sector chief executives earned an average of £391,547.

A talent competition, where particularly gifted people can name their price, has become the norm

Terrie Hughes, the Inbucon pay and benefits specialist who compiled the survey, says a talent competition, where particularly gifted individuals can name their price – also known as "the Beckham factor" – has become the norm. Breaking away from grade-based pay-scales in areas where demand is high allows housing associations to tempt the sector's top scorers. Hughes says: "Traditional evaluations that measured the job, not the individual doing it or how well it was being done, have been taken out of the equation." The survey found a quarter  X X of associations now look at local pay rates and employee performance in addition to living costs when setting salary levels.

The economic downturn currently affecting the private sector means associations have a greater choice of applicants. Although RSLs cannot match private-sector salaries, they are rethinking their approaches to potential employees and publicising the previously hidden rewards a career in housing can bring (see Perk life, page 29).

Aside from hard cash, factors that can tip the balance in favour of the not-for-profit sector include family-friendly policies, paternity pay, life assurance, generous employment benefits and sick pay well above the statutory minimum. Inbucon found that 77% of the RSLs it surveyed operated a flexible hours programme and 65% a job-sharing scheme, benefits that private firms have been slow to offer.

There’s not such a long-hours culture in housing, by any stretch of the imagination peter wallop,

former private sector employee

Peter Wallop, group personnel manager at Southern Housing Group, was lured from a private-sector job by the prospect of a better work-life balance. He used to work for a global hotel chain where 70-hour weeks were the norm. He says: "There's not such a long-hours culture in housing, by any stretch of the imagination." Experience at London & Quadrant Housing Trust backs this up. Sally Jacobson, group human resources director, says the trust has seen applications rise since it was included in The Sunday Times' list of the best companies to work for (HT 7 March 2003, page 12).

A major bonus in the eyes of recruits is that many RSLs still offer final-salary pension schemes, increasingly rare in the private sector. Catherine Diamond, a human resources consultant at Mann Weaver Drew, says the high profile of pensions in the media has brought the issue to the front of people's minds. All the associations surveyed by Inbucon offered a pension, two-thirds of them final salary schemes.

Not least, of course, there's the job satisfaction that comes from making a difference to people's lives. "The opportunity to work in a sector that's providing essential services to the community and doing a worthwhile job – that's very attractive," says Sandy Staff, human resources consultant at Conway Staff Partnership. Sunderland Housing Group, for instance, has received a great deal of publicity since it was created by the transfer of Sunderland's stock in 2001, and senior human resources adviser Gillian Hunter believes high local awareness of the group's development projects has meant a steady stream of applicants.