🥜 Employers turning to Peanut Butter Pay in 2026

Hey HR Pros!

Not every raise has to be earned one performance review at a time. A growing number of organizations are opting for “peanut butter” raises, spreading increases evenly across employees to simplify pay, reduce bias, and boost morale.

Read on to learn more about peanut butter pay.

Upcoming In This Issue:

• 🥜 Employers turning to Peanut Butter Pay in 2026, and more 2026 Salary insights

• 🌴 Giving 6–10 PTO days annually leads to a significant drop in resignations

• 🧱 84% of orgs can’t resolve IT disruptions proactively

• 🎙️ Featured HR Podcast: HR is Not Well: Survey of HR Wellbeing (w. Dr. Jo Burrell)

🧠 A Second Brain for Overwhelmed HR Teams

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SSR’s HR Software Advisor gives HR leaders a practical sounding board for their tech decisions. Think of it as someone in your corner who helps you talk through your options, narrow things down, and move forward with confidence. 💪 

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🥜 Employers turning to Peanut Butter Pay in 2026, and more 2026 Salary insights

Salary increases may be staying flat in 2026, but the way organizations are distributing those increases is anything but business as usual.

As performance-based raises face growing scrutiny for bias, complexity, and ineffectiveness in lower-wage roles, a new strategy is gaining traction: peanut butter pay. This approach applies standardized, across-the-board raises — spreading compensation evenly rather than differentiating by individual merit.

Especially in a year where budgets remain tight and inflation still lingers, many employers are embracing simplicity, fairness, and transparency in how they allocate pay.

Key Insights

• 🥜 Peanut butter raises are going mainstream
  Over 40% of organizations now use or are exploring across-the-board increases, rising to 56% among revenue-exceeding employers.

• 🎯 Merit pay is losing its grip
  Only 48% of orgs are sticking with performance-based increases, while others cite bias and complexity as key drawbacks.

• 🏭 Frontline-heavy sectors lead the shift
  Peanut butter raises are gaining traction in industries with large lower-wage or hourly workforces, where merit differentiation is harder to apply fairly.

• 💬 Standardized increases build trust
  In a volatile market, simple, equitable pay structures help maintain employee engagement, even when budgets don’t stretch farther.

read the full 734-word article her

🌴 Giving 6–10 PTO days annually leads to a significant drop in resignations

Retention conversations are getting more urgent — and surprisingly, the solution may be simpler than expected.

While many organizations focus on upskilling, flexibility, or career pathing, a growing body of research points to a powerful yet underleveraged lever: more paid time off.

Not just the policy on paper, but the workplace culture that allows, and encourages, people to actually use their PTO.

Key Insights on PTO & Retention

• 📉 PTO has a measurable effect on turnover
  Giving 6–10 PTO days annually leads to a significant drop in resignations, unlike policies offering just 1–5 days.

• 🚺 Women respond more to time off
  Female employees benefit more noticeably from increased PTO, pointing to equity considerations in benefits design.

• 🏖️ Culture eats PTO for breakfast
  A generous policy isn’t enough — active support from managers is key to making PTO feel usable, not performative.

• 🎫 Perks can reinforce time-off culture
  Travel stipends, flexible reentry, or normalized PTO planning help boost actual usage and ease return-to-work stress.

read the full 880-word article here

HR LOLs

🧱 84% of orgs can’t resolve IT disruptions proactively

When employees spend more time troubleshooting tech than doing meaningful work, HR sees the ripple effects: frustration, disengagement, and turnover.

HR leaders now play a critical role in shaping how employees interact with the digital workplace. And the numbers show that poor IT experiences are holding people—and performance—back.

Key Insights for HR: The Human Cost of Disconnected Tech

• 🧱 84% of orgs can’t resolve IT disruptions proactively
  Most IT teams still wait for problems to be reported—causing avoidable downtime and employee frustration.

• 👥 49% of IT leaders say employee experience is their #1 priority—but only 36% think they’re delivering it well
  There’s a clear experience gap between intention and impact—and HR feels it in engagement scores.

• 🚀 Personalization boosts onboarding and retention
  AI-driven support cuts onboarding time by 50%, resolves 40% of issues before tickets are even created, and improves experience by 30%.

• 🧩 Top barriers are fixable: 51% cite fragmented systems, 47% cite budget
  HR can partner with IT to simplify digital workflows and make the ROI case for seamless support.

read the full 2,280-word report here

🎙️ Featured HR Podcast: HR is Not Well: Survey of HR Wellbeing (w. Dr. Jo Burrell)