36th Annual Salary Survey: Earning more, but enjoying less?

More than 400 logistics professionals participated in our annual salary survey this year just before the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was felt across the nation. That said, researchers were heartened to see that logistics salaries for early 2020 increased precipitously over 2019 figures.

Our analysts at Peerless Research Group (PRG) further note that the demand for skilled labor remains higher than supply, while the competitive value of newly minted logisticians appears to have outpaced increases in other supply chain costs such as transportation.

“And what’s really key about this,” says PRG research director Judd Aschenbrand, “is that employers appear to be willing to pay.”

As in past years, experience counts, with those with 15 years or more seeing a substantial bump in compensation this year. The data also supports the view that logistics managers are taking on broader responsibilities—a fact that may be hurting morale.

“It’s interesting to note that the level of satisfaction with career declined, with this year’s data pointing to a substantial reduction from 2019’s 56% of respondents saying they’re ‘very satisfied’ to 48% in 2020,” says Aschenbrand. “Most of the ‘very satisfied’ people seem to have shifted into ‘somewhat satisfied,’ a category that increased from 38% in 2019 to 45% of respondents in 2020.”

According to Michael Gravier, an associate professor of marketing and supply chain management at Bryant University, the explanation of this trend could be found when researchers asked: “What factors mostly contribute to any dissatisfaction you may have with your current job?” The percentage of respondents who implicated “company politics” jumped from 42% in 2019 to 49% in 2020.

“It also seems that workload has become an increasingly cited source of dissatisfaction,” says Gravier. “Perhaps most telling is that ‘no room for advancement’ went from 26% of respondents in 2019 to 33% in 2020.”

Furthermore, our results reveal that the stresses of tariff wars, supply chain redesigns, unraveling globalization and technological advances are taking their toll on job satisfaction. “The one factor companies control is internal politics—although as logistics managers become more important to a company’s success, they may seize more of their own leverage,” adds Gravier. (See sidebar.)

Talent crunch

Meanwhile, logisticians should continuously seek to “posture” for the next growth opportunity, says Timothy Hawkins, Ph.D., an associate professor of logistics management at G. Brint Ryan College of Business at the University of North Texas.

“But this is only true if limited to no more than four employer changes over a career,” cautions Hawkins. “More than that and salary starts to decrease.”

According to Hawkins, this posturing could entail advanced education, training, expanded breadth of experience, challenging assignments (e.g., P&L responsibility, agility to new tariffs, and managing through the COVID-19 pandemic), experiencing new regions of the world, and taking on leadership positions.

“From the respondents’ comments on skills and expertise needed to improve pay or position, it appears that analytical skills are in demand regardless of salary,” says Hawkins. “Further, the higher-echelon positions seem to acutely need skills and experience in technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, and robotics.”

For Hawkins, it also appears that for the highest-echelon positions, strategic sourcing (i.e., supply management) appears to be an essential capability. This makes perfect sense given that supply management optimizes 30% to 70% of revenues by building supply coalitions of hundreds to tens of thousands of suppliers—given the current environment of global disruptions.

“Coordinating all of the necessary logistics activities among so many entities is a chief source of complexity,” Hawkins concludes. “Those who do it better are rewarded, and those who don’t, well, best wishes.”

Social networking

What would you say have been the most important steps in advancing your career?

Personal or social networking remains the most important way to advance a logistics and supply chain career, followed by education and certification. At the same time, industry and professional associations appear to be losing their importance.

PRG research indicates that social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) have substantially increased their importance for learning about job opportunities—from 59% of respondents in 2019 to 68% in 2020.

Time will tell if this is a long-term trend, but professional and industry associations have been hemorrhaging members, and a frequently cited factor is their outdated social networking model. They’ve gone through waves of consolidations and mergers, and they’ve invested in more tangible—and lucrative—benefits such as certifications.

Yet it appears that the certifications are the limit of the benefit for most professionals. This suggests an important question: If networking is the most important way to advance a career, how are professionals engaging in networking?

“Is modern social media entirely replacing the professional associations’ traditional social networking roles, or is there something else happening?” asks Aschenbrand. One possibility is that as logistics management-related leaders have become more strategically important to companies, professional associations that focus too narrowly may fail to provide adequate networking possibilities.

“Logistics leaders need to influence leaders from other parts of the business, and are unlikely to get promoted if they focus on influencing only other logisticians,” concludes Aschenbrand.