HR Hub Salary Survey 2021 Results

In 2017 we launched our first HR Salary survey, pinpointing some key findings regarding the compensation package. This year we were curious to see if the HR salaries changed in Romania, especially since the start of the pandemic. We also wanted to have an overview of the Romanian HR market - see if there are any new types of roles, any trends that we can observe.

So, we asked for your input and you answered! We are extremely grateful to all those who took the time to complete this year’s survey! We opened for submissions in May and closed the survey at the end of August. We’ve collected responses from 1,054 HR professionals, based in different cities across the country and with expertise in various HR areas.

Who are our respondents?

The majority of this year’s respondents (78.6%) are senior professionals with more than 5 years of general working experience, out of which, 32.9% have 5 - 10 years of experience in HR and 27.0% - more than 10 years, while 19.0% are professionals who are just starting their careers and 21.1% have 3 - 5 years of working experience.

What types of companies do they work in?

29.5% of respondents are working in the Information Technology industry, 8.4% in HR Consultancy, 5.9% in Automotive, 5.5% in outsourcing, 5.0% in Retail. 45.7% of respondents activate in other industries, all under 3% on their own (Telecom, IT Consultancy, Services, Banking, Oil & Energy, Financial Services, Health Care etc.)

32.5% of respondents work in big companies with more than 2,000 employees, 23.6% with 100 - 500 employees, 22.3% have between 500 - 2,000 colleagues and 21.6% are working in companies with <100 employees.

72.6% of respondents are from Bucharest and Ilfov, 9.4% from Cluj-Napoca, 4.1% from Iasi, 3.3% from Brasov, 3.1% from Timis and 7.5% from other counties.

32.5% of respondents are working in companies with more than 2,000 employees, the rest being split almost equally by 21.6% in companies with less than 100 employees, 23.6% are working for companies with 100 - 500 employees and 22.3% in companies with 500 - 2,000 employees.

52.8% of respondents have a local responsibility span, 29.9% regional and 17.3% are responsible for the global people strategy within the company they are working for.

Salaries by Role

In this section we’ll present the data gathered from 1,054 respondents living in Romania mostly, the majority being part of the HR Hub Facebook community.

Before we start, here's a really important disclaimer: If you are now looking to hire an HR professional and need to figure out their salary package or looking to redesign your compensation packages, we strongly advise you to also check official salary benchmarks for your industry.

Now let's go back to work :) When analyzing the collected data we had a powerful insight regarding the diversity of roles our respondents have - from Recruiting, HR Ops to roles such as Culture & OD, HR Project Management, People Analytics, D&I etc.

In the table below we gathered average salary ranges by role category and seniority in which respondents to the survey are part of. In cases of insufficient information about the salary ranges, we mentioned “not available” (n/a). Additionally, where possible, we mentioned ranges from our previous salary survey.

Looking through the data, there were some outliers that we observed and wanted to share with you. Some of the higher paying roles in Romania, that stood out, are the ones below:

An HR Manager in automotive with a working experience of more than 15 years and with a team of up to 5 people can earn between 10,500 - 11,500 RON/month. In IT companies, their salary can go even higher to over 20,500 RON/month.
A newly appointed HR Director in an automotive company or a bank earns between 9,500 - 10,500 RON/month. In Retail, FMCG, Media or Health Care companies HR Directors are earning between 13,500 - 15,500 RON/month. In companies that are active in the IT industry, an HR Director can earn over 20,500 RON/month.
Organizational Development Managers, as well as Recruitment Managers or Employee Experience Managers or HR Business Partners who coordinate more than 20 - 30 people might earn between 15,500 - 18,500 RON/month.
Experienced HR Project Managers are earning 10,500 - 13,500 RON/month.
L&D Managers can earn between 10,500 and 15,500 RON/month.
Employer Branding Managers with teams of 1-3 people can get up to 10,500 or 11,500 RON/month.

* All the amounts mentioned above are net salary ranges per month.

The highest paying industries are Information Technology, HR Consultancy, Automotive, FMCG.

No matter the role or industry, we learned that 32.1% of our respondents are unsatisfied by the level of their salaries. At the same time, 48% of them mentioned an up to 4% annual increase in the company they are working in, 34% between 5 - 7%, 12% have annual increases between 8 - 10% and 7% - more than 10% per annum.

Benefits

In addition to the salary package, companies offer generous benefit packages, amounting to 1,000 RON, 3,000 - 5,000 RON or even more than 5,000 RON/year in some cases. Some of the most popular benefits companies offer to their employees are:

Health, life and dental insurance;
Meal tickets;
Flexi time;
Extra days off;
Bookster;
Gym membership;
Holidays tickets;
Contribution to pension fund;
Sick days leave;
Budget for training and certifications;
Flexible benefits budget;
Budget for work from home setup;
Performance and holiday bonuses;
The 13th salary;
Wellness programs;
Stock options;
Team buildings and parties;
Transportation expenses reimbursement.

Companies are focusing more and more on employees’ wellbeing and growth. Beside the benefits package and the budget for learning & certifications, companies are offering access to e-learning platforms (LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy etc.) and subscriptions to Harvard Business Review, Gartner etc. On the top of the list of learning opportunities are also coaching and mentoring programs.

Final thoughts

We were pleasantly surprised to observe that, compared to 2017, the HR roles in Romania are much more diversified in 2021. Thankfully, new roles emerged, especially senior ones, such as Culture & Organisational Design, Diversity & Inclusion, Employee Experience, HR Project Management, People Analytics & Tech.

In the landscape of the new normal, these roles are needed to help companies design a more human experience that responds to the increased needs of our employees, while also putting everything into perspective through data and analytics.