Launch of 2014 Workforce Survey Top Line Findings

Every two to three years NICVA conducts a Workforce Survey which provides a comprehensive overview of the voluntary and community sector workforce in Northern Ireland. The 2014 Workforce Survey explored a broad range of issues including workforce profile, salaries, pensions, recruitment, retention, restructuring, training, benefits and future trends.  The Survey was sent to 3,327 organisations across the sector and generated a response rate of 17.4% (n= 580). 

Top line findings from the Survey are presented in the attached infograph and summary article. A more comprehensive overview of results from the 2014 Workforce Survey will be presented in the State of the Sector 7 report which will be published in 2016.

Findings from the 2014 Workforce Survey suggest that the gender composition of the workforce is almost unchanged from the previous study in 2012. For example, three-quarters of jobs within those organisations that responded to the survey were held by females. The findings also suggest that males employed in the sector continue to be more likely to hold full-time positions while females are more likely to hold part-time positions. The proportion of staff employed on permanent contracts remains high at 69%, while just 4% of staff were employed on zero hour contracts.  

Notably females were found to be more equally represented in senior roles such as Director and Senior Function Head. In addition, many job roles experienced a salary increase in real terms since 2012. The findings also suggest that more organisations are recruiting compared to 2012. The analysis sheds light on less positive trends, for example the proportion of females in Chief Executive positions fell to 44%, a decrease of 9 percentage points from 2012. 

Key findings from the 2014 Workforce Survey include:

• 75% of staff in the organisations surveyed were female.
• Females were more likely than males to hold a part-time position, while males were more likely to hold a full-time position.
• Despite representing 75% of the workforce, just 44% of Chief Executive roles were held by females.
• Close to three-quarters of Director and Senior Function Head roles were held by females which signals a more proportionate representation of women at this level from 2012.
• There was an 11% decrease in the proportion of organisations stating that they had not recruited in the 12 months previous to the survey.
• The three most popular recruitment methods were local newspapers (59%), organisations’ websites (52%) and job centres (49%).  The CommunityNI website also ranked highly with 42% of organisations using this method.
• 20% of organisations had difficulty retaining staff and these problems arose due to funding issues.
• Over half of organisations (59%) surveyed did not award a salary increase in 2014 while 39% awarded a 1-5% increase.