I’d been waiting for the results of the Unofficial Salary Survey 2009 after we wrote about it about 6 weeks back. This year the survey got over 100 responses from eLearning professionals in India – up from 54 last year. At such a growth rate this survey has the potential to be a good benchmarking source for Indian eLearning companies.

Now that the results are out, here is a quick summary of the key points that emerge and we found interesting:

1. Salary ranges are very wide - For instance, some IDs with 2-4 years experience draw salaries of INR 800,000-10,00,000 while some other IDs with 6-8 years experience make just INR 350,000-500,000 only. That’s a huge mismatch and I’m wondering if the survey needs to capture many more respondent details to get a more accurate range. Or is such a wide range in remuneration a reality we live in. Another thought comes to mind – are all IDs same? In their education, experience and the kind of work they do. Guess not!
2. Variable pay - 75% of eLearning professional with salaries higher than INR 500,000 have a variable pay component. At Upside Learning we don’t have that as yet (except for sales people) but it sounds like something to consider for the future. But then again, do incentives really work for knowledge workers? I heard this Daniel Pink talk last week and I am kind of confused now. Need to give it more thought before we go down that route. I am all ears if someone from the eLearning industry can give advice on how (if any) a variable pay component for individuals has helped achieving their overall business goals.
3. The recession has had an impact - Severe impact I must say. 12.5% of the sample had a salary reduction, 34% remained at the same salary as of last year, and 33% had salary increments of less than 10%. I imagine those who had higher increments would be placed at lower rungs of the ladder (with lower base salaries) so the actual increase may not be great in real INR terms. The situation at Upside Learning has certainly been better than what this survey suggests. I‘m confident that eLearning is on the rise and that this situation will change in the next 6 months at most other companies too.

For a detailed presentation on results, visit Manish Mohan’s blog.
Manish thanks for making this survey possible.

One Response to “eLearning Development India: Results of Salary Survey 2009”

1. Manish Mohan Says:
   September 2nd, 2009 at 8:48 am

   Thanks for posting this Amit.
   1. Salary Ranges: In the survey, I asked respondents for total experience and relevant experience. As I mentioned in my post, I have considered relevant experience and this has led to some anomaly in data. However when I dig a little deeper into the data, there is indeed a very wide salary range for instructional designers. So while one person with total experience of 12-15 years gets between 3.5 and 5 lac, another person with similar total experience is in the range of 8-10 lac. One is at Manager level, which the other has listed himself/herself as instructional designer. Perhaps I need to include not just the function but also the level in the organization. Useful input for the next survey.
   It is a little hard to conclude whether educational background impacted salary. Looking at the data, I personally felt that having more than just a bachelor’s degree led to higher salary but one could argue that data sample is not large enough to draw that conclusion.
   2. Variable Pay: Different companies and individuals treat this differently. From my personal experience of having spoken with many people from different organizations, variable pay for junior levels is usually linked to either company performance or used more as a retention strategy (it is in most cases not paid monthly). When times are good, almost everyone gets the variable pay and when times are not good, companies have the flexibility of controlling their costs. Other than sales functions or senior level functions, I haven’t seen anyone “aggressively going after” the variable pay component.
   3. Impact of recession: You are right, most people who had an increase of more than 10% were in lower salary range. However there were some in the higher salary range who listed their increases as more than 15%. These were in Project Management and Graphics/Media function. I am not sure if the increase was in the same job or did they switch jobs during the year. Another input for next survey I guess.
   Thanks once again for helping publicize the survey by posting links on your blog. The sample size of respondents is still too small to draw any serious conclusions. However considering that I haven’t yet been able to find any other survey that focuses on elearning and content development salaries, I guess this will have to do for now.
    

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