Employers are spreading raises like peanut butter – and staff are paying the worth | Gene Marks

[ad_1] Trying ahead to a elevate in 2026? Chances are you'll be getting “peanut butter”.

A brand new report from compensation software program and knowledge supplier Payscale predicts that in 2026, many employers can be giving “peanut butter raises” to their staff – will increase given “throughout the board” versus being calculated individually primarily based on efficiency or benefit. They’re unfold evenly, like peanut butter on a slice of bread.

“In whole, greater than 40% of organizations are both utilizing or actively contemplating standardized across-the-board or peanut butter pay will increase in 2026,” the report mentioned. “This will increase to 56% for prime performers (organizations who reported that they might exceed their income objectives in 2025).”

Most employers, the survey says, plan to offer a mean of three.5% raises in 2026, which Payscale says is just like final yr (though primarily based on the hundreds of thousands of staff in its system, payroll firm ADP mentioned that employers really gave wherever from 4.4% to six.5% wage will increase final yr, relying on whether or not they left or stayed at their jobs). Regardless, inflation is about 3%, so raises are maintaining, if not staying forward.

However please, if you happen to’re a enterprise proprietor or supervisor and also you’re contemplating a peanut butter method to your pay will increase this yr – and also you’re blaming inflation – please, don’t. Your higher-performing staff deserve higher than this. And your decrease performers ought to be placed on discover. I've nothing towards peanut butter. Or jelly. However this apply is solely lazy. And – let’s face it – you’re in all probability doing the identical along with your efficiency critiques. We suck at efficiency critiques.

We don’t doc. We don’t reward. We don’t mentor. We don’t coach. We’re too busy chasing earnings. As a substitute, most of us are nonetheless going by way of the motions of the outdated annual evaluation. A lot of my purchasers are manner behind within the course of.

The office has modified dramatically over simply the previous decade. Millennials and gen Z staff now symbolize greater than half of as we speak’s workforce. Youthful staff grew up receiving real-time feedback on their social media posts and acquired Little League trophies only for taking part. They need rapid gratification once they do one thing good. They usually deserve sincere suggestions once they don’t. But most employers nonetheless behave as we did 20 years in the past.

Should you’re a type of organizations which can be contemplating a peanut butter elevate in your staff, rethink this apply A 2015 research from the Society for Human Useful resource Administration discovered that greater than two-thirds of staff had been dissatisfied with efficiency critiques, with 65% saying the train wasn’t even related to their jobs. Managers additionally overwhelmingly mentioned that their firm’s efficiency evaluation course of was not passable.

A 2025 Deloitte International Human Capital Developments survey of greater than 10,000 staff discovered fewer than one in three staff thought their efficiency critiques had been “particularly reasonable and equitable”, and a majority of staff and managers lacked belief in efficiency administration. A June 2025 report described broad misalignment between staff and leaders on efficiency, with many staff feeling their critiques had been unfair, nerve-racking or only a checkbox train, and solely about 29% of staff trusted their analysis outcomes.

Which is why it doesn’t shock me that so many companies are choosing “peanut butter raises” this yr. It’s the simple manner out. Why spend the time to individually consider your individuals when you may simply slap an across-the-board improve on everybody and simply be in your manner?

When a buyer pays you, it means they’re happy with what you delivered. It’s the identical along with your staff. Raises are a real benchmark of efficiency. Staff mustn't solely obtain them, however know the way their elevate compares to the typical of their group. In the event that they care, they’ll search to exceed the typical. In the event that they don’t care, and persistently price beneath common, then that tells you one thing else. And if you happen to do let that particular person go, they (and their attorneys) can’t say they weren’t forewarned.

The suitable manner to do that is to set particular objectives and provides raises twice a yr if these objectives are met, together with incentive bonuses on the finish of the yr, relying on how effectively a employee carried out. The bonus doesn’t must be money both. Immediately’s employee loves flexibility, so further paid day off works effectively. Should you can’t afford both, contemplate a smaller pay improve coupled with a brand new title. Titles are essential too.

Should you’re a type of organizations which can be contemplating a peanut butter elevate in your staff, rethink this apply. Ever seen the well-known scene in Mad Males? The place Don Draper tells his worker Peggy Olson, who complained that he by no means mentioned thanks, that “That’s what the cash is for!”