Mandatum’s Reward and Compensation Survey 2026: One in two employees willing to accept a lower base salary in exchange for performance-based bonuses

Mandatum’s 2026 Reward and Compensation Survey finds employees increasingly want pay transparency, security, and more influence over earnings, with nearly half willing to accept lower base salary for higher performance-based bonuses. Nearly 60% intend to ask about peer salaries in similar roles, highlighting a stronger push for compensation disclosure. The release is mainly a survey-based read on workforce sentiment and compensation trends rather than a direct financial catalyst.

Analysis

This is not a labor-market headline so much as a compensation-capital-structure shift: employees are signaling a preference for variable pay, pay transparency, and control over upside. For listed employers, that tends to compress fixed labor costs over time while increasing earnings sensitivity to operating leverage, especially in businesses where bonus pools can be tied to revenue, trading P&L, or project delivery. The first-order winner is management teams that can re-anchor pay without triggering attrition; the second-order winner is software and HR-tech vendors that help firms administer pay bands, internal benchmarking, and incentive design.

The loser set is less obvious. Companies with opaque, legacy compensation architectures will face a widening talent gap even if headline salaries are competitive, because workers are increasingly comparing total expected value rather than base pay alone. That hurts labor-intensive sectors with thin differentiation in employer brand, and it may also raise wage dispersion inside firms as top performers negotiate harder for payout convexity. Over the next 6-18 months, expect more disclosure pressure in recruiting channels and more internal friction if firms try to preserve confidentiality in high-inflation or high-interest-rate environments.

The key risk is that variable-pay adoption can backfire when revenue visibility weakens: if bonuses become more volatile just as households are trying to de-risk, companies may need to offset with richer guarantees or sign-on packages, delaying margin benefits. Another catalyst to watch is any tightening in collective bargaining or regulatory scrutiny around pay transparency; that could force faster disclosure than management teams are prepared for and expose internal pay gaps. The contrarian angle is that the market may be underestimating how much this favors quality employers with strong culture and weakens median employers that have historically relied on base-pay inertia.

From an investor perspective, this argues for favoring firms that can convert labor into performance-linked expense and avoiding businesses where compensation is effectively fixed overhead. The main opportunity is in names that sell compensation software, analytics, or outsourced payroll/HR workflows, where adoption can accelerate as companies formalize pay bands and incentive structures. For equities with large white-collar workforces, the near-term read-through is a potential margin squeeze if they are forced to disclose more and pay more selectively to retain top quartile talent.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long DAY or PYPL? No direct fit; prefer long HCM/HR software exposure via PAYC on a 3-6 month horizon if pay-transparency adoption drives procurement. Risk/reward: upside from increased compliance and compensation-management spend, with downside limited by recurring revenue and sticky customers.
• Pair trade: long ADP / short a basket of labor-intensive, opaque-pay employers in financial services or consulting over 6-12 months. Thesis: ADP benefits from complexity and compliance, while the short side faces higher retention costs and margin leakage from incentive redesign.
• Initiate a relative-value long PAYC / short a broad consumer-discretionary basket for 1-2 quarters. If variable-pay adoption slows wage growth, disposable-income pressure can weaken discretionary demand while payroll/comp tools gain share.
• If owning high-white-collar-exposure names, buy 3-6 month put spreads into earnings on firms with historically low bonus transparency. The catalyst is guidance risk from compensation normalization; reward is a defined downside hedge if retention costs surprise higher.
• Monitor firms with high bonus intensity and use of deferred comp as potential upside optionality trades; if they can keep headcount while shifting pay mix, margins can re-rate within 2-4 quarters.