Employment is on the rise and with it, the return to attractive compensation packages and salary levels. After several down years in the employment market that was the result of the normalization of an inflated stock market and the beginning of the War on Terror, employers are constructing compensation packages with an eye to drawing dedicated employees.
During the economic bubble of the late nineties, employers were in head-to-head competition with each other to offer benefits and salaries that would draw the best employees. For job seekers, that environment was almost a pick and choose situation in which they could nearly name their salary and benefits package. Many of the dot coms, flush with venture capital, were offering performance incentives that included sports cars, trips around the world, in-office massages, and ping pong tables in the employee lounge. The goal was to attract and retain quality employees.
Employees are looking for something other than Aeron chairs and Hermann Miller office accoutrements in todays job market. Workers who were bitten hard by the post-9/11 reduction in force and layoff epidemic are looking more toward corporate stability...