Mumbai, Nov. 13 -- Retention is the keyword for audit and advisory firms this year. They rolled out neat 10-15% increments this year, apart from bonuses, special monetary rewards and promotions. While the raises are in line with what the firms offered last year, top performers in some cases received hikes of 25-28%. The increments come as firms try to retain employees and expand their teams to prepare for the next round of mandatory audit rotations. The firms are also getting the workforce to rework their skill sets as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes an integral tool, noting that going ahead, billing and compensation will be linked to how employees use AI tools. "If firms are rolling out a 25%-plus increase in salaries, then they are doing it for retention," said Roopank Chaudhary, partner and rewards consulting leader, talent solutions, India, for Aon. "This also comes at a time when the sector including top firms and other audit firms have seen attrition which can in some teams touch 20%." "Overall payouts have remained broadly in line with the previous year. Increments have been in the range of 10-15%, while bonuses have largely been in the 15-20% range," said Arti Dua, a partner and national talent leader at EY India. "Promotions have also remained at levels comparable with the past few years, covering nearly 20% of our workforce." EY is one of the Big Four in India, a clutch of top audit and advisory firms. EY's rivals are Deloitte, PwC and KPMG. Some in this group, such as EY, have 50,000-60,000 employees, so a back-of-the-envelope calculation would put the number of promotions at 10,000-12,000. More than 600 companies will be required to change their auditors in the next round of mandatory rotation starting in 2027. The rotation of auditors, which took effect in 2017, was introduced as a regulatory safeguard aimed at preventing long-term familiarity between an auditor and the company management. Audit firms, both big and small, are retaining their key talent and ensuring there is no dip in increment numbers. Even niche firms have had to offer generous hikes to hold on to their talent as they vie for a larger slice of the client pie during the upcoming audit rotation. "We rolled out a 15-20% hike this year versus 10-15% last year. The need to retain top talent when there is high attrition in the industry is one of the main reasons for this hike," said S. Ravi, founder of Ravi Rajan & Co LLP, a boutique chartered accountancy firm based in New Delhi with a team of over 200 professionals. The trump card for such firms is a smaller but more consistent team, not typically vulnerable to partner poaching and not cross-selling other services alongside audit. Even for employees who are not in audit teams but work in technology, cyber security, risk and compliance, the demand for specialists is high as clients work through changes around AI, risk management and digital threats. Deloitte India's spokesperson said the firm promoted 15% of its workforce in June this year, "marginally up" from last year in both absolute and percentage terms. Given the firm's 50,000 workforce, the number of promotions would be roughly 7,500. "Performance bonuses were paid out as per schedule in September and approximately 1,000 were given a 'President's Bonus' - an extra bonus awarded by business heads to nominated professionals," the company said. Mint learnt that Deloitte rolled out an 8-12% hike this year and top performers received 25-28%, but the firm did not comment on these numbers. Hikes and bonuses are typically paid out in the May-September period for advisory firms, which handle audit and consulting as well. Mint learnt that PwC gave out 9-14% hikes this year, almost the same range last year. The bonuses were equivalent to 10-14% of an employee's cost to the company, but the top performers got more than double that amount. Both PwC and KPMG did not respond to Mint's queries....