Hard work on the frontlines of the social sector is usually compensated more by the sense of fulfilment than by monetary rewards. Love for a cause and the need for compensation for one’s work are often treated as mutually exclusive motivations. Neha Nimble reflects on her experiences as a social worker and researcher in India.

In my social sector career spanning more than a decade now, I spent most of the time convinced that I am in the sector for the ‘cause’ and not the money. And thanks to my mostly like-minded peers and comfortable economic circumstances, I could afford to be unperturbed by this idealistic, normalised, even glorified, though grossly unfair thought. Not even once did I stop to question and address the notion that ‘cause’ and money are often treated as mutually exclusive motivations in the sector.

Why is it that the tendency to compensate hard work on the frontlines with the achieved sense of purpose (and not commensurate salaries) not questioned frequently and strongly enough? Why is it that the ones working on labour justice are often the most underpaid? Why is the sector comprised predominantly of traditionally underpaid socio-economic (especially women) groups? Why is it that these and related questions have never been part of mainstream talent management discourses?

Recently, the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, in collaboration with the Indian School of Development Management, launched India’s first ever study on ‘Talent Management in the Indian Social Sector’. As part of the project, a compensation benchmarking study was carried out to report on the salaries in the social sector. As I engaged with the context (of the research and the sector), questions and emerging insights from this study, I kept becoming actively conscious of the urgent, long overdue, need to talk about money in the sector.

In this article, I cannot address all the questions mentioned above but rather attempt to answer- why we should talk about money (not) being paid in the social sector with a hope that there will be continuation of the discussion that often births but never grows. So, here are my two bits.

1. Social sector workers are paid less than general industry (GI) workers

It is common knowledge that it is a major talent management challenge for social sector to attract and retain talent due to the absence of competent salaries. Recently, the CSIP-ISDM study proved that social sector workers are paid less than half the GI levels. The breakdown of salaries for different kinds of social sector organisations, job level, function, geography, or scope of work further reveal even more dismal state of compensation for certain categories of organisations and talent. The disparity in the salaries being paid to similar level roles across different types of organisations further complicates the goal of pay parity for social sector workers. The first step in any effort towards such goal, however, is to meaningfully acknowledge that social sector workers are underpaid.

2. Talent wants money: ‘Desire to serve’ and monetary compensation are not mutually exclusive motivation factors for work in the sector

For long, one of the arguments in explaining (if not justifying) the absence of competent pay perks has been the kind of talent the sector seeks and requires. People joining the sector are expected to be more motivated by the ‘cause’ or a ‘sense of purpose’ than being in it for the money. Somehow, money has become a bad word, especially in smaller regional NGOs and is often seen as just one part of the overall compensation package. No price can be paid to those ‘serving the society’ therefore they are paid just the basic minimum.

While it is true that non-profits usually attract people with a certain degree of intrinsic motivation to ‘serve’ and those seeking ‘purpose’ in life, the existing research has time and again shown that despite having strong sense of affiliation with their work, social sector workers feel discontent with their salaries and wish for better pay and perks. The CSIP-ISDM study found that only 46 per cent respondents reported satisfaction with their pay.

According to the respondents, people feel motivated to work in the sector because of “challenging and exciting work,” “diverse work opportunities,” “learning and development opportunities,” “organisational culture,” and “purpose and meaning of the work”. At the same time, only 13 per cent of the respondents consider their salaries a motivation to continue to work in the sector. It is not surprising, then, that the most cited reasons of voluntary attrition included unimpressive pay perks.

3. The uniquely challenging nature of social sector work and related expected talent competencies

As much as it is important to ensure that motivation to ‘serve’ does not become counterproductive to the workers, the need to ensure fair and competent monetary compensation is also necessitated by the nature of work done in the social sector.  The increasing demands on the sector to support development of the country in general, and underprivileged in particular, translate into challenging working conditions. To be able to serve the most marginalised sections of the community, workers are expected to bring several unobservable, intangible competencies that go beyond the for-profit roles’ requirements. The CSIP-ISDM study noted that not only is talent expected to have role-specific education, experience, and technical specialisation, it is essential for them to have personal attributes and social sensitivity like humility, respect for diversity, openness to change, mission orientation besides cognitive and managerial skills. To add, in pursuit of tangible, measurable and easily monetisable outputs, long hours of emotionally and physically challenging work are not taken into account while deciding salaries by the organisations and funders. Resultantly, compensation remains to be unmatched by expected deliverables, skills and qualifications.

Considering that the task upon social sector workers is changing society, solving its problems, empowering people, and creating social impact, it is no surprise that burnout is among the topmost reasons for attrition.

4. Strength and sustainability of the sector depend on its workers

A strong and resilient social sector is essential to realise our country’s economy and development goals. Recent decades have seen a number of new demands and pressures on non-profits. Onerous requirements made by draconian government regulations and enduring uncertainty of finances do not only disregard the existing demands on the non-profit sector to share India’s development goals but have also obstructed their work.

Despite little incentives, the sector is responding by growing in scale and sophistication (variety of services and manners of service delivery) to address the systemic and emerging challenges of the country.

If the sector must ‘serve’ the society and address its surging needs and complexities, it cannot long ignore the needs of its talent. Long calls for recognising social work as a profession and related professionalisation of the sector have led to an increased appreciation for for-profit values of efficiency and effectiveness; adoption of human resource management practices for talent management; and rapid development and increased organisational complexity. The sustainability of the sector and its impact on society depend on the motivation and wellbeing of workers. Emotionally and physically draining work without fair compensation significantly affects not only their performance and morale, but also their tenure in the sector.

Paucity of funds for salaries and incentives is a major talent management challenge being faced by social purpose organisations today. With several SPOs reporting losing good candidates to for-profit organisations due to mismatch between the expected salary and the compensation being offered, the sector faces a real threat of dramatic talent paucity.

Relying on employees’ altruism, sector organisations do not only risk staff resentment and attrition but they contribute to the continued undervaluation of their own work. As funder investment in capacity building and institutional strength increases, the sector can do well by acknowledging the massive underpayment of its workers and the urgent need to support compensation parity. It’ll take a lot to reach pay equity but society’s expectations and dependency on the sector make it an urgent issue.

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Notes:

• This blog post represents the views of its author(s), not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics.
• Featured image by Tejj on Unsplash
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