Significant proportions of employers in Ireland did not deliver the benefits that were most valued or desired by employees during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a major new report.
The report by Ireland's largest professional services recruiter, Morgan McKinley, measured both employer and employee responses across Ireland, capturing key information on the benefit packages offered to employees from thousands of businesses.
It covered 1,551 individuals from an overall employee population of over 1.1 million across 22 industry sectors and 30 counties. The companies represented headquartered businesses from 48 different countries.
The report was conducted earlier this year when Level 5 restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic were in place across Ireland, and sought to explore whether the crisis caused a shift in employees’ views on what benefits are important to them.
It established that while salary still played a role in attracting talent, employees wanted “regular, flexible, and holistic benefits” that added value to their personal and professional lives.
The three benefits most valued or desired by employees were health insurance, pensions, and paid sick leave. The report showed that multinational employers in Ireland provided a more comprehensive benefits offering than domestic employers.
Employees working in the information technology, financial services, life sciences and the utilities and energy industries tended to be offered more benefits than their peers working in other industry sectors such as education, agriculture and food and engineering.
On average across all industry sectors in Ireland, 58.5 per cent of employees reported to be offered company sponsored health insurance.
This percentage rose to 82.4 per cent for employees working in IT, 77.3 per cent for employees working in life sciences, and 71.4 per cent for employees working in the business process outsourcing sector.
On pensions, 73.6 per cent of employees said that they did receive some form of pension benefit from their employer.
This percentage increased to 84.9 per cent for employees working in financial services, 83.4 per cent for employees working in the life sciences sector and 81.9 per cent for employees working in the IT sector.
The most popular pension scheme in Ireland was the defined contribution (DC) scheme. Some 78.8 per cent of employees were offered a DC pension scheme as opposed to 18.2 per cent offered a defined benefit scheme.
In terms of paid sick leave, two thirds of employees reported that their company provides them with paid sick leave. A little over half reported not to have taken any sick leave last year.
This percentage was highest at 72.4 per cent for construction employees, 66.7 per cent for transport employees and 64.3 per cent for employees working in business process outsourcing.
Elsewhere, almost 70 per cent of employees reported they would like to be offered a mix of remote and onsite working in the future, and a further 20.5 per cent shared their wish to only work from home.
At the time the report was compiled, 81.8 per cent of employees were working from home either exclusively (65.4 per cent) or as part of a blended working schedule (16.4 per cent).
Just 13.2 per cent of employees said remote working had a negative impact on their productivity. It was more frequently offered to employees working in IT, telecommunications, business process outsourcing, and financial services.
