The placement firm polled its clients to determine whether white-collar workers can expect salary increases in 2012. Here’s what the respondents predicted for various fields:

• Overall, white-collar workers can expect an increase of 3.4%.
• Workers in the accounting and finance fields are predicted to get a salary increase of 3.5%. Especially in demand: financial analysts and business systems analysts who can target growth areas, and tax accountants who can help firms navigate what are expected to be ever-more-complex corporate tax laws.
• IT professionals will see an increase of 4.5%. Systems and networking engineers are in strong demand, particularly in the specialty of cloud computing. No surprise: Mobile-applications developers will be in high demand.
• The salaries for administrative professionals will see the same rise as overall white-collar workers — 3.4%. The growth fields: customer service and almost anything associated with health care administration.

Most business leaders are well aware of how much it costs to keep an IT team going. But slashing the technology budget can have nasty consequences for productivity and competitive edge. What to do?

Figure out how to cut the IT budget without hurting service. And there’s a way to do it.

The only thing that costs more than all that hardware and software your IT group buys are the salaries it takes to keep everything they purchase running right.

Many organization’s are anxious to hold the line on IT pay and, luckily, there’s a no-cost benefit many IT workers want more than money: the ability to telecommute.

In fact, 35% of IT employees said they’d give up a full 10% of their salary for the chance to work from home full-time, according to a recent survey from IT job board Dice.com.

Roughly the same number of people (36%) wouldn’t make the trade. The rest of the folks already telecommute, or were unemployed and said they’d accept any job.

Telecommuting is a rare but valuable benefit for IT pros, according to Dice — less than 1% of the jobs currently posted on the site list working from home as an option.

But offering it to IT workers on a full- or part-time basis can raise morale among current employees, as well as set your company apart from the competition when it comes to hiring new workers.

Companies nationwide expect to increase salaries at an average clip of 2.8% in the year to come, according to a recent study. 

While that’s still well below the 4% average increases companies were offering back in 2007, it’s an optimistic alternative to the salary freezes most companies have instituted over the past 2-3 years.

The figures come from a recent study by Hay Group, a management consulting company.

From a management perspective, now may be the time to research whether other sales organizations are offering salary and/or commission increases.

Taking proactive measures may help you avoid losing some of your best salespeople.

However, if upper-management won’t allow such increases (or your comp isn’t set up that way), all is not lost. Here are three alternatives to consider:

1. Increase the amount of your bonuses, but base them on net profit, rather than gross volume. This way salespeople have an opportunity to earn more — and so does the company. It’s the ideal win-win.
2. Offer extra rewards and incentives for longevity (and achieving long-term benchmarks). This way, salespeople have specific long-term goals and rewards to shoot for — and the company is guaranteed considerable revenue in return for them reaching those benchmarks.
3. Focus on other positives like the extended tax cuts, and the 2% cut in payroll taxes. At the very least, make salespeople feel good about the increased amount of take-home pay they’re earning each week. If reps are really strapped, they may also want to consider short-term strategies like restructuring their 401(k) contributions, or increasing the number of exemptions (or allowances) they claim on their W4s.

Source: “Modest Pay Increases Expected in the Year Ahead,” by Joe Light, Wall Street Journal, 12/27/10.

if you care about how livable a new town might be, check out these new rankings from the online career consultants at WomenCo.com.

Their rankings tout the American cities that offer the most overall value — to both business and employees. And if you consider contented employees more productive and less costly to manage, the livability of a site could translate into a better bottom line.

The folks at WomenCo.com picked their top choices for U.S. cities based on factors that focus not just on lifestyle and general livability, but also on how the economy has hit employment and wages.

Their criteria  included:

• City growth rates, average salaries and costs of living.
• Average commute time — which, according to experts, has a hugel impact on overall happiness.
• Unemployment figures and  the rate that unemployment has actually increased since February 2008.

And the winners are:

1. Austin, TX
2. San Antonio, TX
3. Salt Lake City, UT
4. Oklahoma City, OK
5. Raleigh-Cary Metropolitan Area, NC
6. Seattle, WA
7. Rochester, NY
8. Portland, OR
9. Denver, CO
10. Honolulu, HI
11. Nashville, TN
12. Virginia Beach, VA
13. Kansas City, MO
14. Pittsburgh, PA
15. Charlotte, NC
16. Boston, MA
17. Buffalo, NY
18. Columbus, OH
19. Indianapolis, IN
20. St. Louis, MO
21. Hartford, CT
22. Louisville, KY
23. Cincinnati, OH
24. Philadelphia, PA
25. San Diego, CA