Mercer's just released the 2008/2009 U.S. Compensation Planning Survey revealing that U.S. employers plan to award average pay increases of 3.7 percent next year, compared to 3.8 percent this year. But raises will be higher for the best performers in high-performing industries.

According to the survey, the highest-performing employees are expected to receive base pay increases of 5.6 percent in 2009 compared to 3.3 percent for average performers and 0.6 percent for the weakest performers. "Distinguishing pay increases based on performance allows employers to attract and retain those employees that will contribute to the company's competitiveness and success," said Steve Gross, global leader of Mercer's broad-based performance and rewards consulting business. Keeping the best and the brightest employees makes sense in any economic environment but in tough times doing so takes on greater urgency. "In this less-than-robust economic environment, top-performing employees are an organization's best competitive weapon and they are rewarding them accordingly," he said.

The best employees will also see bigger increases in short-term incentive payouts than average performers. The highest-performing management level employees are expected to receive average short-term incentive payouts of 36 percent compared to just 8 percent for the lowest performers. Commensurately, incentive payouts for high-performing people in lesser positions will be four times that of the lower performers in the same group, 13 percent and 3 percent respectively. But the pie will be smaller than previous years. According to Mercer, short-term incentive awards are expected to decline given this year's lackluster performance in some industry sectors.

Budgeted pay increases by industry in descending order are: Oil and gas upstream, business process outsourcing, business/professional services, life insurance, healthcare, hospitality/restaurant, energy utilities, banking, food, and education.