You will get paid less in 2016 than in 2015. Brace up!

As per the results of a research by the Hay Group division of the global people and organisational advisory firm Korn Ferry, Indian employees can expect pay increases of average 10.3%, across their job roles this year, which is a bit less than the actual average salary increase of 10.4% across India Inc in 2015.

The annual report has broken down jobs into four levels - Clerical and operational, supervisory and junior professionals, middle management and seasoned professionals, and senior management and executives. While there is no change in the hike of middle and clerical and operations levels, the percentages for senior and supervisory levels are down by about 0.2-0.3%. Over all, the increments are expected to range between 10-10.5%.

Talking about industries, chemicals and high technology industries are expected to be the leaders in terms of pay raises. In fact, high tech is the only sector where increments would be higher as compared to last year. On the other hand, the biggest decline can be expected in auto sector.

"This year's compensation study predicts the pay raise to be more or less the same or slightly lower than last year. At this point, the general market can expect the median salary increase and salary hike figure to stay between 10%-11%," said Amer Haleem, country manager, productized services, Hay Group.

"Even though there is hardly any change in increment percentage in the last 4-5 years, what's changing is the play within that overall percentage. Companies are now making a sharp differentiation between high, average and low performers. The increment grids have a broader range spread, which directly brings the focus on the differentiation in rewards, for different levels of performance. Variable pay plans for many organisations have been modified to lay emphasis on organization performance. Organization weightage has a key role to play at senior and middle management and it also cascades down to junior management," he added.