Hot Jobs: Customer Care & Content
Curation Jobs Accrue Big Pay Gains
The recently released findings from the 2022 C2HR Compensation Surveys revealed that content developers remunerated critical jobs in news, program scheduling and audience research with substantial pay raises – two to three times the national average. Customer care reps with an aptitude for engaging and retaining customers garnered similar increases at connectivity companies.
These findings reflect the shifting post-COVID landscape. Live experiences became more important, streaming content became more crowded and rising inflation caused consumers to scrutinize their services for not only the best value but also for the content most engaging to them.
“Against this dynamic backdrop, industry employers continued their nimble practice of rewarding those employees most essential to business growth and revenue generation,” commented Parthavi Das, Executive Director for C2HR. “C2HR’s Compensation Surveys pinpointed those vital positions and provided participants with data essential to offer competitive and equitable compensation.”
Customer Retention Skills Rewarded
With inflation at the forefront of employees’ minds, connectivity providers’ longstanding practice of supplying a living wage by raising pay for hourly workers grew ever more critical. Base salary for entry level hourly positions rose 7.5% in 2022, while journey positions garnered 6.2% gains, senior 3.8%, and hourly lead jobs 1.9% raises in 2022.
“It was gratifying to see more companies have joined the efforts to implement greater pay for hourly and sales positions. This seems to indicate that companies are realizing the importance and are more willing to invest in their employees to attract but then retain frontline talent,” said Nick Dunlap, Vice President, Executive Compensation, Charter Communications.
Competitive pressure for workers – from companies like Netflix and behemoth online retailers like Walmart – also drove dramatic compensation increases in 2022 for employees who interface with customers. Job opportunities are extensive for call center employees, as many companies no longer limit their recruiting efforts to a specific location and now offer full-time remote positions.
The 14 survey participants, which included multiple system operators, satellite providers and home security companies, representing 126,300 employees, reported pay raises ranging from 5% for expert Customer Care Tech Support Rep 3 to 10% for workers just beginning their careers in the same job series, Customer Care Tech Support Rep 1. Further, survey participants recognized the value of employees skilled at keeping wayward customers and rewarded Customer Care Retention Rep 2 with a whopping 14% pay bump. (See Figure 1)
Regarding customer care retention representatives: “Those employees have the skills that everyone is looking for,” said Hali Croner, President and CEO of The Croner Company, the research and compensation consulting firm that conducted the surveys for C2HR. “Not only can they work the computer screens, but they can also engage with customers on chat or on the phone,” ultimately offering a service package that keeps revenues flowing, she explained.
Content Curation in High Demand
As content choices exploded across a plethora of platforms and streaming services in 2022, employees possessing the aptitude and intuition to engage wandering consumer interest reaped the largest content pay increases. The C2HR’s 2022 Content Developer Survey showed that in the news division, those working the assignment desk achieved raises ranging from 13% for news assignment editor to 6% for manager of content or news editorial. Talented news producers scored even larger compensation gains – 15% for news production assistants and 10% for both associate and senior news producers. (See Figure 2)
Meanwhile in the entertainment division, those skilled at slicing and dicing all that content to create schedules that attract and maintain viewer interest also accrued compensation increases well above 2022 salary budgets. Program schedulers harnessed 11% bumps in pay, nearly three times the merit increase. Similarly, manager, senior, and senior vice president of program scheduling all captured 8% salary increases. Select market/audience research positions captured 10% raises, and creative design talent accrued 9% increases. (See Figure 2)
ROI for Survey Participants
C2HR’s annual surveys enable participants to keep ahead of these types of compensation increases. “Because of all of our production jobs at FOX News and FOX Sports, we use the survey data nonstop,” said Kristin Cicciari, senior vice president of compensation for FOX Corporation. “The large sample size allows us to pull survey matches directly. It’s great. We use it daily as a guide post for compensation recommendations.”
Forty-two content developers, employing 34,394 workers and representing a mix of cable programmers, television and satellite radio broadcasters, and digital content creators participated in C2HR’s 2022 Compensation Survey. More detailed findings from the 2022 surveys are available in this article.
“C2HR’s survey captures a far greater portion of the entertainment market than the other survey houses,” Cicciari added. Such deep participation by the industry increases the data’s usefulness, she said.
2023 Survey Participation Enrollment
If your company is interested in participating in the 2023 C2HR Compensation Surveys, or would like additional information, please contact Laurie Krashanoff at 415.485.5521 or use this form.
