Fund managers, who have become better at linking their employees' compensation to performance, may have backed themselves into a corner by locking staff into their firms.

That's the view of Richard Wohanka, chief executive of Fortis Investments, who warned his colleagues at the Fund Forum, the annual European funds conference in Monaco, that the pendulum may have swung too far: "I wonder whether we're going too far the other way because there are a lot of people locked in and, potentially, there is not enough mobility."