Most consumer brands are entering 2026 with ambitious growth goals and responsible spending expectations, making people decisions higher stakes.
How you pay, who you hire next, and how you shape the team will influence whether you hit your growth goals. The 2026 Consumer Brands Salary and Market Trends Report is useful as it shows how employees interpret those choices. Raises, bonuses, equity, and transparency serve as proof points for the business and leadership.
Here are 10 trends to watch in 2026. If even two seem familiar, the full report will help you make more intentional compensation choices and set clearer people strategy priorities.
1. Pay satisfaction is up, but it is still shaky
Fifty-five percent of employees say they are satisfied with compensation, up from 48% last year. That sounds positive until you realize what it implies. Nearly half of your workforce is either neutral or dissatisfied, leaving ample room for second-guessing and job shopping.
2. Satisfaction predicts who is already planning to move
Among compensation-satisfied employees, 27 percent plan to switch jobs in the next year. Among dissatisfied employees, that rises to 40 percent for executives and 53 percent for non-executives.
This data gives you a planning window. Use it to protect retention now, before you are paying the premium for replacement later.
3. Raises are no longer assumed
Just 53 percent of respondents received a raise this year, down from 62 percent last year. When raises are not consistent, employees interpret pay decisions as a statement about the business and their future in it. In a high-growth environment, that shapes your ability to hold on to the people you need to execute the plan. The teams that handle this well set expectations early and reserve dollars for the people they cannot afford to lose.
4. The default raise is 3 to 5 percent. It will not keep your top people.
Half of employees received raises, with the majority of increases landing in the 3 to 5 percent range. Most employees expect the same next year. That is the baseline. It helps you maintain stability. It does not strengthen commitment among your strongest performers, especially when they are getting outside interest. In 2026, the bigger risk is not the size of the raise. It is what the decision conveys when expectations are poorly managed.
5. Unpleasant raise surprises doubled. That creates risk.
About one in five employees were blindsided by no raise, double last year, when one in ten were surprised. This is where brands accidentally create retention risk.
When pay decisions feel unpredictable, people fill in the blanks. They assume the business is underperforming. They assume leadership is not being direct. They assume their contributions are not valued. That is rarely the message you intended, but it becomes the narrative that spreads. If you want to protect momentum in 2026, set expectations early and explain the why before people write their own version.
6. The retention price and the recruiting price are not the same
Most employees have come to expect modest increases next year (3-5%). In many cases, that expectation is an easy number for competitors to beat when they want to pull your strongest performers away. The report makes the reality plain. It often takes 15 to 20 percent or more in additional pay to attract top performers. For executives, job-switch intent does not shift until increases exceed 20%.
That gap turns into a cost fast. Once someone leaves, you are not just replacing a person. You are paying a market premium, absorbing lost momentum, and asking the rest of the team to carry the work during the transition. A frugal raise decision in Q1 can become an expensive replacement effort by Q3.
Prepare for 2026 with a clear compensation strategy: who gets a standard increase, who needs a meaningful adjustment, and what you will do when you can’t meet the market.
7. Bonuses are more common than raises, and more emotionally loaded
About two-thirds of employees received a bonus, while about half received a raise. When a bonus does not land, the largest share of employees attribute it to company performance rather than individual results. About one in ten expected a bonus that never materialized.
In 2026, bonuses function like a credibility check. Criteria and communication matter as much as the dollars.
8. Equity matters more broadly than most leaders assume
Sixty-seven percent of executives report receiving an ownership benefit, compared with 38 percent of non-executives. Equity is considered extremely important by 70 percent of executives and 47 percent of non-executives.
If ownership is part of your retention strategy, access and explanation have to be intentional. A benefit people do not understand does not retain anyone. In 2026, competitors will not just compete on cash. They will compete on a clearer story about the upside.
9. Leaders think compensation is transparent. Teams disagree.
Forty-five percent of executives say compensation is very transparent. Only 13 percent of non-executives agree. Among non-executives, 22 percent say it is not very transparent, and 27 percent say it is not transparent at all.
This gap matters because when people do not understand how pay decisions are made, they assume it is arbitrary or political. That drives job shopping, internal noise, and higher costs later to rebuild trust.
If you want compensation to support retention and performance in 2026, transparency is not optional. It keeps high performers focused on the work, not on rumors.
10. More leaders are open to leaving. Fewer companies have a plan for that.
Compensation is only part of what leaders are responding to. Leadership continuity is also under pressure. Nearly six in ten executive leaders are planning or open to a transition in the next year. At the same time, two-thirds say they lack a succession or backfill plan for their own roles. That creates a planning gap that surfaces later, at the worst possible time.
Add AI into the mix. AI is accelerating workflow changes, but only one in four executives say their company has adjusted team structures or job descriptions as a result.
This is where 2026 plans may be tested. Leaders are more mobile, work is changing, and many organizations are not updating job scopes or coverage quickly enough.
Get the full report
The full 2026 Consumer Brands Salary and Market Trends report includes salary benchmarks by role and function, plus deeper dives into raises, bonuses, equity, transparency, leadership continuity, and the emerging roles reshaping org design.
Ready to align people strategy with growth strategy
If you’re planning hires or revisiting compensation, reach out to talk with someone about aligning people strategy to the growth plan.
