Benefits and Job Perks
What Benefits Are Important to Tech Professionals?
Unsurprisingly, health insurance, PTO, 401k matching and pension benefits remain the most important for tech professionals. While the share of those claiming these benefits as important has trended downward over the past few years, tech workers continue to regard them as the most important.
As employers seek to attract and gain skilled tech professionals, a strong step in the right direction would be to make sure that those three key benefits are part of the company’s benefits package. While secondary benefits such as stock programs, work-from home stipends, wellness programs and fitness reimbursements do not hold as much importance to tech workers, they offer a strategic way for employers to differentiate themselves. In fact, our data shows that every year these benefits have continued to take larger shares of importance since 2021.
Benefits That Are Important to Tech Professionals
The Benefit Gap
The Benefits Employees Have vs. Those They Find Important
Our data shows some considerable gaps between the benefits tech workers want and the ones they have. For example, while 53% of tech workers report that they want a work-from-home stipend, only 19% have it. There are similar gaps for benefits such as stock programs, training and education, commuter assistance and dependent care. As we have watched these trends over the last few years, we have noted that the gaps remain wide open year over year, highlighting either an unwillingness or unawareness from employers to change. As the recruiting industry trends toward more emphasis on building a strong employer brand, identifying and closing gaps such as these are critical to retention.
The Benefit Gap
The Benefits Employees Have vs. Those They Find Important
Our data shows some considerable gaps between the benefits tech workers want and the ones they have. For example, while 53% of tech workers report that they want a work-from-home stipend, only 19% have it. There are similar gaps for benefits such as stock programs, training and education, commuter assistance and dependent care. As we have watched these trends over the last few years, we have noted that the gaps remain wide open year over year, highlighting either an unwillingness or unawareness from employers to change. As the recruiting industry trends toward more emphasis on building a strong employer brand, identifying and closing gaps such as these are critical to retention.
Vacation
Our data shows that the vacation available to tech professionals aligns with what was available last year and the year before. The most common vacation package offers three weeks of paid time off, representing 21% of reported vacation policies. Though it has been a popular discussion topic in recent years, only 10% of tech professionals are offered “unlimited” paid time off policies.
Encouragingly, tech professionals maintained the ground they gained in 2022 in terms of the amount of vacation time that they used. Forty-five percent of our respondents used all their vacation time and only 17% used less than half. We speculate that the growth and maintenance of tech professionals reporting that they used all their vacation time points to a broader shift in regard to desired work-life balance and increased value placed on taking time outside of work. For the most part, tech professionals feel that they are supported by their employers, as 71% report that their company culture encourages taking their time off.
How much vacation is available to you?
How much vacation do you plan to take this year?
Bonuses
While the percentage of tech professionals receiving bonuses in 2023 is consistent with 2022, nearly half of tech professionals saw an increase in their bonus this year. This finding is unexpected. Most bonuses are given at the beginning of the year, meaning that even amid an unprecedented layoff spike in January and February, many tech professionals enjoyed an infusion of cash. This is a strong reminder that, while high-profile layoffs dominated the tech landscape for much of the year, not every company or every tech professional was impacted in the same way. (Among those tech professionals laid off, some were no doubt contractually obligated to receive their bonuses from the preceding year, as well.)
Among the various income streams that tech professionals enjoy beyond their annual salary, bonuses remain the most significant, constituting nearly half of all additional income streams combined. However, we did see an increase in the share of income generated by commissions, profit sharing, dependent care and tuition assistance compared to 2022.