Several months have passed since our last report on the Five-Yearly review (5YR) in June 2020, and these have been busy times. The 5YR objective is to ensure “that the financial and social conditions offered by the Organization allow CERN to recruit and retain the staff members required for the execution of its mission from all its Member States” (c.f. Annex A 1 of the Staff Rules and regulations). Detailed reports on recruitment and retention data were shared and discussed with our Member States in 2020, and while salaries are not the only component of successful recruitment and retention, their review forms an essential and obligatory aspect of the 5YR process. To this end, the benchmark of CERN Staff salaries with respect to local and international markets, with Germany and Switzerland identified as the main markets by the ISRP, is now complete. So too is the comparison with ESA, ESO, EMBL, DESY and the EC for what concerns Fellows’ stipends.
Further, to ensure CERN also remains competitive in terms of employment conditions, the ISRP has undertaken a Diversity and Inclusion benchmark survey with eight organisations*. The conclusions and recommendations are now under review and consideration, and we will share the results of these studies in due course.
We now enter the final stages of the process, with a few months to go to the target completion deadline of December 2021. The D&I benchmark results, as well as the salary and stipend studies, will be formally presented to TREF respectively in March and May 2021, before onward submission to Council. Detailed concertation through the Standing Concertation Committee will aim to build concrete proposals based on the conclusions, for implementation in 2022.
We will keep you updated throughout the process. In the meantime, you will find full details of the 5-Yearly Review 2021, its content, timescales and detailed updates on the respective milestones here: https://hr.web.cern.ch/5yr-2021.
* EMBL, EPO, ESO, ESA, EC, ITER, UNOG, OPCW