I just got this message from Sibson Consulting, the benefits consulting firm. It’s more disappointing news on the wage front:

“Budgets for employee “merit” salary increases will again be modest in 2008, according to Sibson Consulting. Projected increases for next year are 3.9 percent for executive staff, 3.9 percent for exempt white collar workers and 3.7 percent for non-exempt employees – all at the same levels of pay increase as for 2007.

“‘Although there is much talk about pay for performance, merit increases are treated as across-the-board increases in many companies,” observes Jim Kochanski, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting. “Many managers don’t like to differentiate as to employee performance and use a small salary increase budget as a reason not to,” he says.”

“Related to this salary environment is employee dissatisfaction with how their job performance is managed. A recent Sibson survey with support from WorldatWork found that a large majority of employees do not trust their organization’s performance management system and have little or no coaching and performance feedback from their bosses.”

Oi Veh….