As a healthcare HR professional, you understand the unique challenges of attracting, retaining, and engaging talented employees in a highly competitive industry.

From navigating the complexities of staffing shortages and high turnover rates to fostering a positive work environment that keeps staff motivated and committed, your role is more critical than ever. You’re often balancing the demands of compliance, employee well-being, and constrained budgets—all while striving to create a workplace that is desirable for employees to remain long-term.

In an industry that is constantly fluctuating in terms of supply and demand of talent, you know that paying competitively is the bare minimum.

How are you keeping up with the fluctuations in pay across healthcare? Mercer just released our 2025 IHN-Healthcare Compensation Survey Suite and if you haven’t purchased that yet, let’s take a look at what you might be missing.

How did salary increases really play out in healthcare?

Several times a year, We report on projected annual increase budgets with our Compensation Planning Surveys and then what was actually paid to employees in the March edition each year. For example, in March of 2025, Healthcare reported that they actually provided an average of 2.8% in merit increases, including zeros, which was below the national average (3.2%).

In August of 2025 we released another version of the survey that asks participants to project what they will budget for merit and total increases for 2026. Ninety-eight Healthcare Services organizations participated in the survey and the projected average merit increase budget is 3.0%, while the total annual increase budget average is projected to be 3.4%. In November Mercer will publish the next version of the same survey which allows companies to update their projections.

Merit and total increase budgets are one thing but what about jobs that are paying more, or less, year over year due to labor supply, a change in industry, or other economic factors? That’s where you need to look at annual salary surveys.

As an HR professional working in healthcare, you can empower your organization with the data that drives strategic decision-making in today’s evolving healthcare landscape with Mercer’s newly released 2025 IHN-Healthcare Compensation Survey Suite.

Unlock the future of healthcare with this comprehensive survey backed by robust insights and data from 2,846 organizations, representing over 3 million incumbents across 778 key positions. Our extensive survey covers a diverse range of healthcare settings, including data and modules for all types of healthcare organizations (hospitals, senior living, outpatient surgery centers, fertility clinics, assisted living, children’s hospitals, and much more)!

For more information about Mercer’s Healthcare Survey Suite (IHN) and other solutions and products Mercer has for the healthcare industry, please visit www.imercer.com/healthcare or email surveys@mercer.com.