The latest edition of Dice’s Tech Salary Report shows that tech professionals with highly specialized skills can pull down enviable salaries. But for many tech pros, money is only part of the equation—they want their employers to provide a variety of perks and benefits, from health insurance to flexible schedules.
As you can see from the following breakdown (taken directly from the Report), some benefits are amply covered by employers; for example, 79 percent of tech pros consider health insurance important, and 80 percent say they have it. However, a larger gap opens up for benefits like child/elder care, with 34 percent of tech pros consider important, but only 11 percent actually have. Here’s the full breakdown:
For organizations everywhere, these gaps can lead to tech pro dissatisfaction—and might be part of the reason why 52 percent of tech professionals told Dice they’re likely to change employers within the next year.
Whether you’re fine with your current benefits package or want something different, the most important thing you can do is weigh the importance of a particular benefit against the larger picture of what an organization offers you. Finding the perfect situation with the right culture, right kind of work, great co-workers and all of the benefits you want sounds wonderful, but it’s incredibly hard to actually pull off; a more likely scenario is that you end up with some of the good and some of the not-so-good. Depending on how you weigh the benefits you have vs. what you want and need, you may have to choose your battles during negotiations.
The three key benefits with largest gaps included work-from-home stipends, training and education, and stock programs. Other areas with a widened expectation gap included gym/fitness center reimbursement and commuter reimbursement. While employers have gotten much better about offering flexible schedules and work-from-home benefits, gaps still exist in paid sick days, remote schedule options and flexible schedules.
In good news for tech professionals, organizations were able to close gaps in critical areas in 2022. Most notably, the gap between importance and receipt of paid vacation days fell from 7 percent to 3 percent year-over-year, and the gap for maternity/paternity leave dropped from 8 percent to 4 percent. Given tech’s notably low unemployment rate at the moment (1.5 percent in January) and employers’ need for tech professionals with the right mix of specialized skills, the current moment is a good one for negotiating for added benefits.
For much more on benefits, salary, and tech professionals’ sentiment, check out the Dice Tech Salary Report!