Demanding a pay rise in line with inflation used to be the very least you might expect from your employer.
But research by our sister publication IRS has found that just 6.1% of pay awards are now worth more than the headline rate of inflation (retail price index inflation), which rose to 4.3% in May.
At the same time, fuel tanker drivers have been on strike, demanding a 14% pay rise and forcing some opportunistic petrol stations to raise the price of petrol to £1.99 a litre.
Whatever happened to the notion of compromise? We're all faced with rising fuel prices and constraints on our household budgets, but few of us expect our wage packets to increase significantly in the current economic climate. You could argue it's a good time for HR and reward managers to get creative and look at what they can offer staff beyond purely financial incentives.
Do this, and once the economy picks up again who knows? You might be in for an inflation-busting wage hike.
