The package
3 Nov 08
The emphasis is moving away from pay to a wide variety of other aspects of the reward CAs receive for work done, from gym access to healthcare to office bicycles. Robert Outram looks at the choices that employers offer and CAs make
by Robert Outram
More than 1900 of you responded to our salary and benefits survey, carried out by CA Magazine in association with recruitment specialists PRG. Thanks to all of you for your help in providing a snapshot of the profession, its pay and perks, and how its members tackle work/life balance.
This month we concentrate on benefits: what’s on offer, what are the benefits you really want and how much might they be worth to you?
Just under 38 per cent of those who responded are working in professional practice
and the rest are distributed across a wide range of sectors, with banking (7.1 per cent) and financial services (7.8 per cent) the only two standing out.
The good news is that most of you are “satisfied” (68.9 per cent) or “very satisfied” (10.8 per cent) with your current benefits packages.
As the table opposite shows, the benefits most likely to be received are:
• Commission or bonus;
• Pension money purchase (defined contribution);
• Private health care;
• Training support (work-related); and
• Ability to buy/sell annual leave.
CAs in practice are significantly less likely to receive benefits in many categories, including private health care, extra holidays, health insurance, gym membership, a company car or even a company bicycle. The only category to which they are more likely to be entitled is the ability to buy extra days of annual leave.
But what about the benefits you don’t have, but wish you did? There’s no doubt as to the winner: the fast-disappearing final salary (defined benefit) pension is the clear winner. That is the case even though about 46 per cent of respondents receive a money purchase (defined contribution) pension as part of their package.
Other than retirement benefits, the wish-list seems to be dominated by a desire to be at work as little as possible: extra annual leave, a paid sabbatical and the ability to buy or sell holidays feature heavily. The need to keep fit and healthy means gym membership and health insurance are also in the top 10. Clearly with all that extra time off, it is necessary to look good at the beach.
Help with childcare ranks very low in terms of benefits received (4.3 per cent) or desired (5.5 per cent), despite the tax breaks available for this form of benefit.
Meanwhile, the trend for most employers seems to be to add to benefits – 34 per cent said their benefits had been extended over the past couple of years, and only just under 8 per cent had seen them cut – though that may, of course, be a different story over the next 12 months.
Among the benefits that have been cut, final salary pension schemes, subsidised lunches, annual leave, and the availability and choice of company car are among the most common.
We also asked about work/life balance. CAs are a hard-working lot and while the majority of you are contracted to work a nine-to-five day, nearly half (47 per cent) work longer than that over a typical week. Qualified accountants in practice are slightly less likely to work more than a 45-hour week (40 per cent as opposed to 48.5 per cent for qualifieds as a whole) but they are more likely to take work home “frequently” (28.5 per cent as opposed to 22.5 per cent).
Men work longer hours than women (55.7 per cent work 45 hours-plus, while only 34.4 per cent of women do so) and they are more likely to fail to take all of their holidays (38.2 per cent as opposed to 28.3 per cent of women). Women and men are roughly on a par however, when it comes to taking work home “frequently” (21.3 per cent and 23.2 per cent, respectively).
We are all individuals and the benefits that we want or need are not all the same, so it is good to see that 45 per cent of you are entitled to choose from a menu of potential benefits.
But what about cold, hard cash? In December we will look at who’s earning what, and where. Meanwhile, I can reveal that one in four of you are not satisfied with what you are earning. If you are one of those people, next month’s issue could make very interesting reading.