2021 Ireland Benefits Survey: Employer & Employee

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) team at Morgan McKinley are delighted to introduce the most comprehensive cross-sector benefits survey in Ireland.

This is the first of its kind that measures employer and employee responses across Ireland, capturing key information on the benefit packages offered to employees from thousands of businesses.

Overall, the responses to this survey represent an employee population of over 1 million across 22+ industry sectors and 30 counties across Ireland.

Navigate through the guide using the arrows and feel free to download your own copy using the 'Download' button in the bottom right.

Key Overall Findings:

• The top 5 benefits most offered in Ireland are: (1) Pension, (2) Paid sick Leave, (3) Work from Home, (4) Bonuses & Incentives and (5) Health Insurance
• The 3 most important benefits for employees are Health Insurance, Pension & Paid Sick Leave
• Multinational employers have a more comprehensive benefits offering than indigenous companies: 81.2% of employees working for multinationals reported to be offered Health Insurance as opposed to 32.6% of employees working for domestic companies
• The industry sectors with the highest benefits offering in Ireland are IT, Financial Services and Life Sciences
• 64.3% of employers having participated to the survey are considering extending remote working beyond the current Covid-19 related restrictions
• Nearly one out of four employers surveyed reported to have changed their benefit package as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak

Significant Insights Per Benefit

• Pension: Pension is the most offered benefit in Ireland. The most popular pension scheme is a Defined Contribution scheme and most employers offer a plan that consists of a 5% employee contribution matched by a 5% employer contribution.
• Health Insurance: 78% of employees reported their company to fully subsidise their health insurance. Among these, 60% said that the employer also fully subsidised their family HI.
• Work from home: 69.9% of employees reported that they would like to be offered blended working options in the future. Overall, only 13.2% of employees said that WFH during restrictions had negatively impacted their productivity.
• Educational Support is highly valued by employees (it ranks 8th among a list of 28 benefits) and it is often underestimated by employers. This benefit is particularly valuable to younger employees. Employees under the age of 25 provided the highest rating for this benefit (8.4/10).
• Annual Leave: In Ireland, the statutory Annual Leave entitlement is of 20 days. Nonetheless, most employers tend to offer more than this. The most common AL entitlement is 25 days with 33.8% of employees reporting to be offered this many days.
• Paid sick leave: Paying an employee on sick leave is up to employer’s discretion in Ireland. Nonetheless, 67.4% of employees reported that their company provides them with paid sick leave. Having said that, more than half of the employees reported not to have taken any sick leave in 2020.

---

Thank you to everyone who kindly took the time to participate in our research and complete the comprehensive survey.