At first glance, the compensation picture for provider-based PR and marketing executives seems bleak. On average, base salaries have remained relatively flat, according to William M. Mercer's 1999 Integrated Health Networks Compensation Survey.
This year, the more exciting news is in incentives and bonuses that boosted annual compensation for local hospital-dominated PR and marketing heads to $98,300 (for those who were eligible) and led to a 7.8% jump from last year. On the integrated delivery network front, top marketing executives saw their annual compensation swell 8.5% to $202,800 from $186,800 due to incentives.
By contrast, the average annual base salary for the heads of marketing and PR departments at local hospital-dominated organizations decreased 1.2% in 1999 to $68,600 from $69,700 in 1998. The picture isn't much brighter for marketers at integrated providers, where top marketing executives earned $144,100 - a meager.5% increase from 1998.
This compensation scenario mirrors the tight reimbursement climate hospitals have been struggling with under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which forced providers into an ultra-conservative-spending tailspin. The focus is on pay for performance, with more and more hospitals adopting short-term incentive programs for executives. This year, 57% of healthcare organizations surveyed in the Mercer study reported using at least one type of short-term incentive plan - a modest 2% increase from last year.
The prevalence of short-term incentives is significantly higher among for-profit organizations (68%) than their not-for-profit counterparts (55%).
In this special issue, HPRMN's 1999 Salary Survey & Exclusive Guide to Executive Recruiters, we look at what drives performance in a PR and marketing context and career trends and tools that will make your job search less stressful.
This issue also is chock-full of salary data for provider-based PR and marketing executives, derived from the Mercer study as well as agency-based salary figures provided by Marshall Consultants, an executive search firm with offices in New York and Malibu, Calif.
(Mercer, E-mail: [email protected], 800/333-3070; Marshall Consultants, Larry Marshall, 310/457-3760)
What Keeps Employers Up At Night
Strengthening the relationship between performance and pay is the top compensation concern among healthcare executives with a ranking of 4.1 on a scale of 1 to 5, according to the Mercer study.
| Other concerns include: | |
| Compensation Issues | Ranking |
| Accuracy of market pricing data | 4.0 |
| Pay equity | 4.0 |
| Timeliness of market pricing data | 3.9 |
| Increases in unit labor costs | 3.9 |
| Approaches used to determine relative job value | 3.5 |
| Source: William M. Mercer | |