Employers offer remote work, higher pay to retain talent

Salary expectations continue to rise, notably among senior roles in engineering, banking and funds management and technology, says Trayc Keevans, global FDI director with recruitment consultancy Morgan McKinley Ireland.

Some of the most sought-after executive roles include chief technology officers (CTOs) and vice presidents of engineering. Morgan McKinley’s latest Quarterly Employment Monitor showed a 9.05% increase in Q2 vacancies across all professional sectors, and an 11.45% rise in professionals actively jobseeking.

“The executive market is still very buoyant and shows no sign of slowing down,” said Trayc Keevans. “Hiring dynamics are particularly strong among early stage/growth companies who are looking to secure strong leadership.

“Companies are increasingly taking a global approach to look for the right executive profile. Senior executives are also pushing negotiations for larger packages. We are definitely seeing a candidate-driven market at the moment.” 

CSO figures of 4.8% unemployment in June 2022 is almost the same as pre-pandemic levels in early 2020. IDA Ireland reported 155 new investments in Q2, with employment potential of up to 18,000 jobs. Enterprise Ireland reports are similarly positive.

“In a candidate-driven market, employers have to offer more competitive salary and benefits to attract new hires or at least consider deploying more creative compensation and benefits packages that will appeal to the talent cohort they are seeking to attract,” said Trayc.

The emergence of remote working has also broadened the talent pool for many employers, who are increasingly seeing benefits in nationwide recruitment.

“Remote working has become the benefit most in demand,” Trayc said. “It is now expected that some element of remote working will be available and many candidates will not entertain opportunities where at least some element of remote working is not offered.” 

This is particularly evident in the tech sector, where a Morgan McKinley poll found that 51% of candidates surveyed would refuse to put their CV forward for a role if it did not permit them a full-time remote working arrangement.

This appetite for remote working is also extending to roles that traditionally were performed onsite. Again, tech roles figure prominently in this shift towards employees expressing a preference for remote working.

In terms of tech roles, Morgan McKinley reports that a shortage of candidates has increased day rates among contract technology professionals. Smaller companies, unable to compete on benefits with larger companies to attract permanent staff, are increasingly seeking talent from the contract market.

Among the most in-demand are: full-stack developers, data scientists, security analysts, data engineers, soc managers, security engineers, risk modelers, data analysts. Programming skills remain in strong demand.

“We are currently seeing engineering and life sciences professionals pushing for hybrid working arrangements and requesting one or two days of remote working.

“Consistently across multilingual talent, hybrid and work-from-home arrangements are an expectation from the majority of candidates. Two years of remote working arrangements during the pandemic means candidates have become accustomed to the arrangement.” 

Many multilingual sales candidates are refusing even hybrid arrangements and companies unwilling to offer flexible working options are seeing high rates of turnover within their multilingual talent. There is some correlation here to the costs of rent and availability of housing versus salary earned and where this cohort of employees can afford to live and commute from.

“Fuel costs are increasingly a driving factor in the increased desire for work-from-home arrangements according to candidates across all sectors with professionals whose work would require they be ‘on site’ also seeking hybrid and remote work due to the rising cost of fuel,” said Trayc.

There is however a cohort of young people, many in shared rented accommodation who do not have proper facilities that would allow them to work from home, who want to be in an office – both from a social and work point of view.

There is a danger that this cohort will be overlooked and not catered for in the ‘new norm’ of hybrid or remote working.

“Remote working has allowed companies to consider a nationwide talent pool,” she said. “However, the increasing price of housing and the shortage of accommodations continues to be an issue for companies who do not offer fully remote working options.

“In this sense, we are seeing employers refusing to consider applicants who are not already living in the commuting area of their offices as they so not have confidence that applicants who are willing to relocate will be successful in securing accommodation should they be offered the job due to the housing shortages.” 

 Throughout the pandemic Big Tech companies, in particular, continued to recruit, allowing many new hires to work remotely from their home country.

These companies are now actively seeking to regularise a return to office-based employment mainly on a hybrid model and employees must relocate to Ireland by the end of August in order to meet Revenue requirements.

“This is leading to pressure on both long and short-term accommodation through to September. We are advising companies who may be seeking to bring in talent from abroad to factor this into their hiring timelines,” said Trayc Keevans.

Reporting: The Irish Examiner