Navigating Employee Retention: Staying Competitive in a Changing Market

April 09, 2025

In today’s challenging labor market, competitive compensation and benefits packages are crucial to securing and retaining top performers. Whether you're a CEO planning for the bank’s long-term growth, a CFO managing the bottom line, or an HR leader filling a key role, tapping into reliable compensation data is essential.

Through member surveys and conversations, we know that recruitment and retention is a core issue facing community banks today. That’s why ICBA has taken on launching a new national Compensation & Benefits Survey, conducted by ICBA’s Preferred Service Provider Avannis, to replace the 40-year survey that was discontinued by Crowe in 2023.

Key Dates and Instructions for Participation

Enroll your bank before April 30 and designate a person to complete the survey for your bank. (Have your FDIC number ready for easy enrollment)
On May 1, the specified contact will receive a custom link to the survey along with a spreadsheet of job roles.
Participants can save their work and return to complete the survey at any time before the survey closes on May 31, 2025.
The new report and dynamic dashboard will be published in early fall and made available for purchase once the survey window ends.

Why It Matters

This compensation survey built for and focused on community banks offers detailed insights so banks operating in multiple states or recruiting across state lines can manage staffing costs and compete effectively. Bankers also report using the information to:

Define roles and duties—With compensation data for 272 distinct positions, the survey includes job descriptions that help you align titles, responsibilities, and pay. If you’ve ever struggled to define where someone fits based on what they actually do, this solves it.
Support career mapping—Need to show employees what’s next? The data offers insight into how roles evolve—and what skills and compensation increases are tied to upward movement. That makes it easier to build internal career paths and reduce turnover. Coupled with ICBA’s Professional Development Planner, this is a game changer for managers and employees.
Retain top talent—When your best people know they’re being compensated fairly, they’re more likely to stay. Use the survey to ensure your compensation aligns with the market, so you can keep your team—and your momentum—intact.

What You’ll Gain

This year, participating is easier—and more valuable—than ever, covering:

Base pay increases and turnover averages.
Detailed compensation for 272 bank positions.
Incentives and non-traditional benefits.
Traditional benefits by role and job category.
Paid time off and vacation policies.
Board of directors’ compensation and incentive trends.

As with previous iterations, there’s no cost to take part in the survey. In fact, it’s highly encouraged. The more community banks that participate, the richer and more useful the data. This is particularly important as talent becomes more mobile and regional boundaries blur.

New This Year

ICBA also announced plans to roll out a new digital dashboard this fall that allows banks to slice and dice the data. So, whether you’re benchmarking entry-level roles or executive packages, you’ll have easily accessible and actionable intel.

Survey responses are confidential, and only aggregate data is shared. As an added incentive to sharing your bank data, ICBA is offering participating banks a significant discount on the purchase of the final report and dashboard.

So, don’t miss your chance to gain a competitive edge. Participation is simple (see sidebar) but the value—for your bank and the industry—is significant.