The research shows that younger cohorts often find the path towards greater workplace benefits inaccessible in comparison to their older peers.
Global talent services firm Morgan McKinley has today launched the Ireland 2026 Benefits Guide, which is a comprehensive national study of the way in which benefits are offered by employers, as well as how they are experienced and valued by employees across Ireland’s labour market.
To compile the data, Morgan McKinley gathered 1,222 employee and employer responses across more than 32 sectors, from organisations dispersed all across Ireland. What was discovered is that while benefits are often an expectation and technically available, there are issues of accessibility, raising questions about visibility, trust and awareness.
Mutually beneficial?
Younger cohorts in particular were found to have significantly less access to pension or health schemes, despite 90pc of participating employee respondents reporting being enrolled in an employer-sponsored pension plan. The report said, “This points to a benefits model that remains strongest for established employees, rather than consistently supporting talent from the earliest stages of employment.”
Nearly 62pc of Baby Boomer generation employees said that they have access to a pension plan, as did 77pc of Gen X and 72pc of millennials, compared to just 54pc of Gen Z.
The report said: “While this pattern may partially reflect variances in tenure and contractual stability, for example temporary versus permanent roles, it is likely also influenced by eligibility criteria or employer matching structures that defer enrolment for junior or early-career employees.
“In certain organisations, minimum service requirements or mandated contribution thresholds can act as a barrier, preventing younger employees from fully utilising pension benefits during their early career stages.”
The opportunity for hybrid work was also shown to be unequally distributed among employees, with those in the Gen X (63pc) and millennial (62pc) categories reporting higher availability than their younger Gen Z (44pc) and older Baby Boomer (29pc) peers.
“This difference suggests that access to hybrid working may vary by role or level within organisations, with younger employees less likely to report receiving these benefits. The findings indicate that, even where hybrid working is available at an organisational level, it may not be experienced equally across all employee groups,” the report said.
Bonus and incentive schemes also highlighted the disparity in the access to benefits between certain age demographics. For those in the middle of their careers – Gen X (63pc) and millennials (64pc) – the report indicated that there is better access to bonus and incentive schemes.
But to the detriment of the Baby Boomer (48pc) and Gen Z (42pc) employees, the research indicated that there is a concentration of performance-related pay within mid-career roles, where professionals are more likely to hold positions directly linked to business outcomes.
Interestingly, benefits considered to be specialised, such as menopause leave, menstruation leave, childcare benefits, rental support and unlimited paid time off, were shown to have a limited uptake across all generations, suggesting minimal exposure.
The report said, overall, that generational analysis suggests that patterns of employees receiving benefits are closely linked to career stage and the way eligibility is applied within organisations.
“Although core benefits are widely reported across the workforce, variation in access among younger and more junior employees points to the need for employers to review eligibility rules and how benefits are communicated, so that entitlements are easier to understand and more consistently experienced across a multi-generational workforce.”
Long-term impact
More than two-thirds of participating employees (68pc) stated that the benefits provided by their employer, as part of the compensation for their work, play a significant role in their loyalty, compared to the 32pc who reported that benefits do not influence this aspect of their career.
This, according to Morgan McKinley, indicates that, for the majority of employees, benefits form a meaningful part of the overall employment proposition and can influence decisions to remain with an organisation for the long-term.
But the report also suggested that it isn’t enough to just have benefits available. It is critical that they be relevant to the workforce in question, with “a notable minority expressing dissatisfaction”.
“More than one in four employees (26.8pc) report being either somewhat dissatisfied (17pc) or very dissatisfied (10pc) with their benefits. Given the strong stated link between benefits and loyalty, this dissatisfied cohort represents a potential retention risk, particularly in competitive labour markets where benefits are increasingly used as a differentiator.”
Commenting on the findings of the report, Trayc Keevans, global FDI director at Morgan McKinley, said: “This report shows that the Irish benefits market is no longer defined by how many benefits an employer can list. It is defined by whether those benefits are accessible, understood and aligned with what employees actually value.
“What stands out most is the contradiction. The benefits employees value most for long-term security, particularly pensions and health insurance, are not always reaching people early enough in their careers. In a market shaped by an ageing population and by lifetime community rating in health insurance, that is a strategic issue for employers, not just a design detail.”
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