Understanding Salary Comparison in Ireland

Understanding Salary Comparison in Ireland

13th Jun 2022

It can often be taboo to discuss your salary with others, but in order to know if you’re being paid what you’re worth, you need to understand what’s possible, what salary negotiation tips work best and how to ensure your organisation’s salary benchmarks are set. 

Striving to reach your earnings potential is something that most people look to achieve.

There are numerous ways you can achieve a salary comparison in Ireland and better understand how payments are calculated so that you don’t miss out. But first, it’s best to get a bit of insight into just how, from an organisation’s point of view, a salary is viewed.

What are Salary Benchmarks?

For businesses, having a salary benchmark allows them to achieve numerous metrics that help them to stay on top of their day-to-day running, whilst ensuring that the business has individuals who can move the organisation forward without breaking the bank. Salary benchmarks help businesses to achieve several objectives, including:

  • Compete for the best professional
  • Attract the best candidates
  • Achieve a high level of job satisfaction
  • Reduce costs through retention of staff
  • Meet equal pay requirements

Having the right parameters for salary benchmarks means that organisations can retain talent, optimise productivity, and attract the best candidates to grow the business and help it to meet its goals.

How is Salary Calculated?

Understanding how a salary is calculated will allow you to better process what you’re making and how to improve your financial position and is great when it comes to working out how to do salary comparisons in Ireland. There are numerous ways salaries become settled on by businesses, here are just a few.

  • Hiring Budget
  • Industry
  • Contract Type
  • Local Average
  • Education and Experience
  • Location
  • Supply and Demand
  • Perks and Benefits

All of the above can contribute to how a salary is created. Impressive perks and benefits may directly impact the financial figures on a salary, especially if they’re particularly helpful, or the wage may be impacted by being in a specific high-cost area of the country or affluent industry.

How to effectively compare salaries

Salary comparison in Ireland is something that both businesses and employees need to do to ascertain whether it’s a good fit for both. There are numerous salary comparisons in Ireland and salary benchmarking tools out there for you to use but also, but it’s worth looking at similar jobs with other companies. 

Make sure to not just go with job titles but also read job descriptions, by doing so you’ll better understand how similar your job is in another business and easily be able to compare your worth vs theirs at separate companies. This is a great way to identify job roles elsewhere and compare against salary values but comparing salary worth is one thing, what happens if you discover that you currently have a salary that is below the industry standard?

How to handle a salary that is below expectations

Striving to reach your earnings potential is something that most people look to achieve. You want to ensure that you’re being paid what you deserve but what happens if you discover that you’re not? It’s a difficult situation to be in if your salary is below expectations and can demotivate you considerably. However, providing a clear-cut analysis of your pay compared to others will reveal exactly where you stand, from here, you can act. 

Once you’ve started to better understand the situation, it will be worth approaching a mentor, recruiter, or a more senior member to ask for advice and get an external opinion that will provide feedback not just on the salary situation, but also on how best to effectively communicate to achieve the salary you want.

Asking for salary raises

While asking for a higher salary can be an awkward conversation to have, it’s one that at times, needs to be done. It’s normal for people to find it difficult to have a conversation with their current employer about salary and instead seek employment elsewhere at a higher rate. While this is common, often, having open and honest dialogue with your current employer can provide you with the result you’re looking for, if not clarity on your employment situation and earnings potential where you are. 

When it does come time to ask, it’s also a good idea to equip yourself with a record of your achievements and why you should be in line for a salary raise. Information about new clients you’ve brought into the business, how you’re able to generate more revenue for the business and how you’re improving your teams’ ability to do the job is all great data to have, so that you can show that you have earned your salary raise when you ask.

Salary Benchmarking and Progress

There is a lot that goes into determining salary and how salary comparison in Ireland works. Whether you are happy with salary benchmarking in your organisation or not, it’s good to know how it works so that you’re always prepared in case you ever need to consider your options. 

We’ve listed a few salary negotiation tips for you here but should you need anything else, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at PE Global.

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