The 11th Annual Frontline Retail Salary Guide has been released. This year, the Salary Guide was based on 5684 randomly selected retail candidates. These candidates applied for retail positions with Frontline Retail over the last twelve months.

The salary figures are based on actual salaries for candidates who have been placed during this time and candidates’ salaries in their position prior to being interviewed by Frontline Retail.

FEATURES OF THE 2007 SURVEY

• Sydney, Perth and Brisbane all experienced growth in salaries in all positions.

• Perth has shown significant increase in salaries for both Store Managers & Assistant Managers who are now more in line with Brisbane salaries

• Adelaide and Darwin salaries remained relatively stagnant with minimal increases on the prior year.

• This is the fifth consecutive year Brisbane salary levels exceeded those in Melbourne. It is consistent with a market that is experiencing a candidate market and one in which candidates know their market value.

• Sydney retailers are still paid more than their counterparts in the rest of Australia. This is not surprising given the higher cost of living in Sydney and the level of the current candidate shortage.

• For clients it means attraction and retention have become priorities for most businesses as ways of dealing with the 'war for talent'. Flexibility surrounding packaging, flexibility, candidate experience and the consideration of transferable skills across sectors has enabled companies to expand the pool of available candidates. You can read more about this in our “War on Talent” article series in the Resources section of our website.

• For candidates it means that there is room to move on salary negotiations but beware the trap of being caught in the counter offers and job hopping. If cultural fit, career progression, training and work-life balance is important to you now is the time to negotiate and the pay-off is usually a win-win for the employee and the employer.

ABOUT THE GUIDE

In 1997, Frontline Retail surveyed salaries paid by small Speciality Retailers in Sydney only and slowly expanded the survey over the years to include Speciality Retailers, Department Stores and turnover categories. This year the Survey was conducted in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, South West Western Australia, Wollongong and Darwin. For the first time we have split the Survey into Metropolitan and Regional centres. A New Zealand salary guide is also available. Please contact your Frontline Retail consultant for more information.

EXECUTIVE POSITIONS

As with previous years, we have omitted the Executive Salary Guide, which includes salaries for positions above the Store Manager level. A separate “Executive Salary Guide” will be published by Frontline Retail and will include salaries for executive level appointments in retail.

UNDERSTANDING THE GUIDE

To provide usable data for each position we have indicated the “Average” salary, and a salary “Range” for each level surveyed. The “Range” indicates the typical salary bracket, which is being paid in the marketplace for each position and level within that position.

The higher end of the range is determined by adding the “Standard Deviation” (see explanation further in article) of the surveyed salaries for each level to the “Average” for that level and the standard deviation are subtracted from the “Average” for the lower end of the range.

It is important to note that each salary “Range” does not represent the highest and lowest salaries for each group, as this would alter the ranges dramatically. For example, one candidate in the survey; an Assistant Store Manager in the $3 to $4 million-dollar level is paid substantially higher than other Assistant Store Managers at the same level. The circumstances surrounding this are quite out of the ordinary and it is considered to be misleading to include these types of anomalies in the Guide.

In order to deal with large deviations from the average and provide realistic figures for the salary “Range” for each level, we have used the statistical function of “Standard Deviation”.

STANDARD DEVIATION

Standard deviation is commonly used in surveys and is recognised as an effective method for averaging ranges in large samples, it works like this:

In a set of numbers the “simple deviation” of a particular number is the difference between that number and the average of the set. The variance of the set is the average of the square deviations of all the numbers in the set. Finally, the standard deviation is the square root of the variance.

In the Salary Guide, if the figure for the standard deviation is small, that means that most of the surveyed salaries for that level were close to average; if it is large, the salaries are widely scattered. In the Salary Guide we have indicated the standard deviation in dollar terms beside each average for the position and level.

An analysis of the guide shows that the values of the deviations tend to increase as the average salary increases—this is especially prevalent in the $5 to $10 million-dollar brackets for both Store and Assistant Managers.

IMPORTANT POINTS

• The figures in the Survey are gained from real salaries and provide a reflection of what the Retail employment market is actually paying.

• The figures are not related to any State or Federal Award.

• The figures include superannuation at the rate of 9%.
• Frontline Retail uses these figures as a guide when advising Clients and Candidates on salary levels.
• In the case of salary packages, where a car or car allowance is included (in the groups surveyed a car allowance is rare), we have not included the value of the car or allowance in the salary figure in the Guide.
• Performance based bonuses are generally on offer for all levels of management and are excluded from these packages.
• As a general trend the more senior the position, the higher the deviation.

We would like to express our gratitude to all those people who made this Survey possible by providing invaluable feedback which we feel has made it one of the most accurate and up to date surveys of its kind addressing the retail sector in Australia.

We welcome any feedback or comments regarding this survey whether positive or negative to ensure that it continues to be relevant to the Australian marketplace. Please contact your local Frontline Retail consultant should you require any additional information about local market issues.