Municipalities, departments and regions: to be more attractive, more than nine out of ten communities (92.9%) consider it “necessary” to increase the remuneration of their agents, according to a survey published on Tuesday by associations of local elected officials. To do this, they depend above all on the State, which has control of the treatment (the equivalent of the base salary) of the 2 million community agents.
Reduction of recourse to bonuses
Only about a third of respondents recommend the use of bonuses and compensation, which are the responsibility of communities. However, more than one in two local elected officials (51.7%) say they have already used bonuses to “promote the attractiveness” of their community and retain the loyalty of officers already in office. In 2022, only 45.2% of territorial employers reported using bonuses to attract or retain their staff, three quarters of whom belong to category C, the lowest paid in the public service. “When you take into account the question of the attractiveness” of communities, “the first thing that arises is the need to focus on remuneration,” declared the general secretary of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) at a press conference on Tuesday. , Murielle Fabre.
To finance salary increases without overloading their budget, 59.6% of the communities advocate a reduction in their contributions and charges, and 56.8% advocate an increase in their income.
Difficulty recruiting or retaining officers for most communities.
The strategy of using bonuses to hire is more deployed in the municipalities, because “they have fewer resources (than other communities, nd) to implement other levers of attractiveness” such as financing from the employer’s mutual association or teleworking. Larger communities (regions, metropolises, departments) rather highlight the possibility offered to agents to telework. An argument that is ineffective in small municipalities, where “few agents perform teleworking functions.”
These engagement strategies are essential at a time when 57.4% of respondents say they have difficulty recruiting or retaining their agents. A large half of communities surveyed (51%) say they plan to hire soon, up from 49.2% in 2022 and just 17% in 2015.
The study was carried out by telephone between May 15 and June 30, with a sample of 1,000 local authorities.
Source: BFM TV
