CPL’s report discovered that these days, wage could not be probably the most urgent concern for professionals.
Dublin-headquartered HR firm CPL has printed the outcomes of a current survey wherein it found that presently, workers prize high-quality management nearly as a lot as they worth compensation.
The organisation spoke with 1,600 age-diverse women and men, amassing knowledge in mid-2025, to construct a broader image of the preferences and attitudes of execs.
CPL’s Wage Information for Eire 2026 discovered that whereas compensation and advantages proceed to be the highest precedence for 35pc of contributing workers, 24pc of execs stated that management and tradition are a very powerful elements to contemplate when selecting an employer.
Breaking down the weather that make up the management and tradition class, workers had been discovered to particularly worth tradition, values and ethics (27pc), work surroundings (25pc) and management behaviours (24pc). The report acknowledged: “CPL’s findings reinforce that management high quality stays a essential driver of worker attrition.”
Burgeoning advantages
Among the many advantages of key significance to professionals, CPL’s analysis discovered that versatile working has advanced from a perk to a essential element of worker packages. After monetary remuneration, flexibility ranked because the second most necessary profit at 26pc.
The analysis indicated that 70pc of taking part workers now utilise some type of versatile working, with CPL noting that earlier research point out that one in 4 candidates wouldn’t proceed with a job alternative if it lacked alternative for versatile work.
A wholesome work-life steadiness additionally issues to professionals, as 40pc stated it was an expertise precedence. 21pc famous significant and stimulating work contributes to their general happiness. The report stated that whereas not but surpassing compensation in significance, “work-life steadiness, when thought-about alongside versatile working, represents a core pillar of any profitable expertise technique”.
CPL’s analysis additionally indicated that there’s an incoming ‘workforce evolution’ of kinds, prompted by limited-company progress. The report famous that in Eire, a rustic that skilled near-record restricted firm incorporations in 2025, progress and hiring is stalling.
It stated: “This progress displays layoffs and slower everlasting hiring for skilled professionals, prompting many to determine their very own companies offering specialist companies throughout know-how, life sciences and monetary companies.
“This pattern alerts a structural shift towards self-employment, fractional management and contingent workforce fashions, providing organisations entry to essential experience with better price and workforce flexibility.”
Searching for organisational stability and extra profession pathways are additionally priorities, the report indicated, noting that workers are in the hunt for well-structured corporations. Organisations’ stability and progress ranked as an necessary issue for 34pc of contributing workers, adopted by organisational construction at 22pc, and mission and function at 17pc.
Notably, company social duty (CSR) and sustainability ranked low, at 5pc, suggesting organisations should strengthen their positioning as net-benefit entities.
CPL stated: “Funding in upskilling, reskilling and inner mobility is accelerating as abilities shortages make exterior hiring pricey and aggressive.
“Workers count on seen profession development, and organisations require resilient workforces to navigate financial and technological change. These constructing clear profession pathways and investing in studying scale back long-term hiring strain whereas retaining essential abilities.”
Commenting on the report, Lorna Conn, the CEO of CPL, stated: “Eire’s labour market is present process a interval of dynamic evolution. Whereas financial and technological pressures proceed to reshape how organisations function, one elementary fact persists: expertise is the important thing differentiator for progress.
“This wage information sits on the intersection of pay, abilities, flexibility and management, drawing on insights from CPL’s Way forward for Work Institute, Eire’s 2026 expertise traits and our newest evaluation of AI’s affect on the workforce.”
Wanting forward, the report finds that Eire’s 2026 expertise market will proceed to reward organisations that undertake a holistic, long-term method to the worker expertise.
It stated that whereas “not each organisation can compete on wage alone, these balancing compensation and advantages, profession improvement, innovation, versatile working, and upskilling are finest positioned to draw and retain prime expertise”.
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