Unitus announces 2nd ‘Microfinance Compensation & Benefits Survey’ for Indian MFIs

Microfinance Focus, Jan. 7, 2010: Microfinance funding and consultancy firm Unitus has announced the second annual Unitus-Hewitt Microfinance Compensation and Benefits Survey.
Open to microfinance institutions throughout India, the survey is a successor to the 2009 Benchmarking study that provided participants with valuable insights into their operations and was identified as a key industry HR initiative in “Microfinance India: State of the Sector Report 2009.”

“The 2009 survey allowed us to add a key layer of understanding about the best practices in rewarding staff to our already strong HR Advisory practice,” said Unitus VP and India Country Director Ganesh Rengaswamy. “In 2010, we plan to take this initiative to the next level by expanding the assessment and by combining the survey results with our understanding of the microfinance space, the progressive practices of other industries, and an overall technical expertise in the space of compensation and benefits.”

The study will evaluate MFIs across India on key measures of compensation and benefits, including benchmarking of 25 key positions across eight organizational levels, and study 10 popular non-cash benefits like loans, insurance, incentives/bonus, leave, travel policy, ESOPs, reward and recognition, said a statement. Following the survey, participants will receive customized reports and an opportunity to participate in an implementation workshop to discuss results and recommendations.

“The survey will measure and analyze salary benchmarks from MFIs from all across India, including regional differences in compensation and target market (rural vs. urban), as well as insights into the design on non-cash components and variable pay structures,” said Sandeep Chaudhary, Hewitt’s Rewards Consulting Leader for South & West Asia. “When coupled with the reporting and implementation program Unitus has designed, we anticipate this being a highly useful engagement for participants,” Chaudhary added.

The survey is the first initiative of Unitus’s newly launched MFI Industry Compensation & Benefits Forum, an endeavor to bring a better understanding of remuneration issues and practices in microfinance to the industry. Based on the results of this survey and the needs expressed by the participating MFIs this forum will initiate workshops, additional studies, best practice sharing, and focused group discussions on various compensation and benefits issues for the MFI sector throughout the year.

For more information on participation requirements and pricing, please contact Gazal Vishwanath before January 20, 2010 at: gvishwanath@unitus.com
+91 998 669 0777

The information shared with Unitus-Hewitt will remain completely confidential and will never be shared with any organization individually, the statement added. It said only synthesized data will be made available to the participants of this study.

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