Employers and employees are being forced to revisit some fundamental assumptions about their implicit and explicit 'compact' with one another as a recession battered workforce makes its feelings known in a recent employee attitudes survey. Nick Tatchell reports
The impact of the recession has changed the basic social contract that underpins employment in the UK. People are motivated to ensure that they and their employers get through difficult economic times successfully. But there is a disconnect between what people expect from their employers and what employers believe they can reasonably offer. The Towers Watson Global Workforce Study[1] has highlighted some key retention issues.
Career expectations
The 2010 results of this survey, which covers 20,000 employees from private sector organisations across 22 countries, also demonstrate that employees have dramatically lowered career expectations. Career advancement now takes a back seat to a desire for workplace security and stability.
Some 81% of employees regard a secure and stable position as important to them in their workplace. 59% rate a wide range of work experiences as important – second only to job security. The recession has not diminished employees’ desire for opportunities to develop their skills and abilities in their workplace.
On some aspects employees have become more traditional in the deal that they want from their employers. Eight out of ten employees want to settle into a job, of whom roughly half want to work for a single company their entire career and the rest want to work for no more than three companies. This yearning for job security is unsurprising as many employees believe their current organisation cannot offer a secure and stable position and many believe there will be significantly fewer jobs outside their organisation.
As might be expected, age has an influence in employees’ motivations, with workers under 25 more interested in career advancement opportunities and, interestingly, work life balance and flexible work hours. This contrasts with the focus on job security and better pensions for older workers.
Proof for the desire to settle into a job lies in the fact that most employees are not looking for another job – 46% have no plans to leave while a further 37% are not looking though would consider another offer if one presented itself. Only 12% of people are actively looking for another job at the moment, with a further 4% having made plans to do so.
A changing social contract
Cost cutting measures during the recession have reminded employees they are now increasingly on their own for everything from career planning to financial security. This reflects in a changing social contract and the related realignment of priorities, expectations and actions.
Employees now define career advancement as being more about acquiring new skills to do their current job better and to make them eligible for other jobs, and less about a traditional progression through the ranks of the organisation. This redefinition of career advancement has become embedded in the UK workplace. It challenges organisations to think more creatively about how to create career advancement opportunities for their people. It means placing higher emphasis on mentoring programmes, and on collaborative working that cuts across reporting lines and business units. It also highlights the value of providing employees with opportunities to network with more experienced colleagues.
Employees however express concerns about career advancement opportunities. 41% believe they have to leave their organisation and join another in order to advance to a higher level job. According to employees, the top three barriers to advancing their career within their organisation are: lack of career advancement opportunities; their organisation reducing the number of job levels so there is less opportunity of advancement; and difficulty in identifying available opportunities.
There are many frustrated employees who can see no opportunity for advancing their career within the organisation, and some of the actions companies took during the economic downturn are likely to have further limited their options. Retaining staff may not be high on many companies’ agendas currently but they would be wrong to ignore the retention issue. When the jobs market eventually opens up, the pent-up frustration could have significant consequences on morale and performance – hindering growth and recovery at the very time it is needed most. The Towers Watson study shows that it is high potential employees who are most willing to move employers to advance their careers – just the people companies can least afford to lose.
Trust in senior leaders
The recent tough times and the current climate of uncertainty have also created a longing for leaders who ‘connect’ with the workforce. Trustworthiness is rated by employees as the most important attribute of senior business leaders – cited by 71% of employees. Next comes care about the well-being of others (62%), being highly visible to employees (56 per cent) and encouraging the development of employees (50 per cent). Yet activities that most senior leaders would consider to be crucial are not highly rated by employees as important to the senior leader role, such as promoting the brand, positioning the organisation to compete in the global business environment and keeping a high profile outside the organisation.
The 2010 results support our previous findings that senior leaders play a key role in driving employee engagement. Companies may need to redefine how they intend their leaders to build trust and demonstrate interest in employee well-being. They may need to make employees aware that, only as leaders fulfil their ‘business’ role well - by creating a competitive, profitable business, will they deliver the career opportunities and other workplace support that employees seek. This is much more than simply creating a workplace that employees feel great about.
Reslience
What once worked for an organisation will not cut it in today’s workplace. Fundamental changes in both the employee/employer contract and employees’ own priorities make a return to normal nearly impossible. Instead, organisations must hone their ability to educate employees in self-reliance, fostering within each person the knowledge and confidence necessary to effectively manage their careers and their financial future outside the safety net provided in the past.
[1] The full report is available at: http://www.towerswatson.com/global-workforce-study