Global Study Of Workforce Attitudes, Changes Points Out Evolving Workplace Mores, Needs

Retention of key personnel is growing as an issue for organizations and HR departments in particular.

According to a recent Towers Perrin study, the make-up of organizations and employee outlook is taking on a global perspective while change in the composition and outlook of employees are evolving.

According to the study, there are several confluences at work.

This survey, covering roughly 86,000 employees at all levels in the organization, reveals both significant differences, and some surprising similarities, in people’s attitudes, needs, work ethic and personal commitment to jobs and companies.

Respondents were, on average, midway through their careers (the average age of the overall group is 37), and they’ve been with their current employer, on average, about nine years. And they spend a considerable amount of time at work, with over half (57%) clocking more than 40 hours a week on the job, and 9% saying they work over 60 hours weekly.

People want different things from their company at different stages of their employment life cycle. In other words, the elements that attract them to a job are not the same as those that keep them there or encourage them to fully engage and deliver consistent high performance on the job.

Broadly, only 15% are actively seeking new jobs or about to change employers. However, fully 43% are what we call “passive job seekers,” meaning they are open to leaving if a good opportunity comes along.

A key retention theme is company reputation as an employer. This organizational attribute was, in fact, the only item in a long list of organizational attributes that influences all three phases of the employment life cycle — attraction, retention and engagement.

According to Towers Perrin, companies will need to pay more attention to which groups of people they’re retaining or losing, especially in the context of their business and skill needs, to determine where issues may lie and how best to address those issues.

In North America, the availability of training and career advancement, effective support from managers and the ability make one’s own job-related decisions is viewed as very important.

In Tower Perrin’s view, there is an employee's need for evidence that they are making a commitment — initially and over the duration of their careers — to the “right” kind of organization.

Some experts point to the success of GE in emphasizing training and commitment to an individual’s career as a key to that company’s success.

What the report clearly indicates, other experts say, is the need of the HR department to be fully engaged in making sure the organization communicates its commitment to employees.

The report also focuses on the changing nature of workforce management, not only in the United States, but globally.

There are solutions out there for handling workforce changes.

Goodwill Industries has completed a three-year pilot project aimed at developing a business model that would help small- to medium-sized employers keep their employees.  Among the strategies employers found effective were staff training, performance reviews and no- or low-cost incentives for good work.

A free guide can be downloaded from their web site.  Called “Making Work Work:  Tools for Turnover Reduction,” you can find it under “Related Documents” to the right of the screen at http://www.goodwill.org/page/ guest/business/workforceexpertise.

These efforts come as organizations and HR departments in particular are facing significant changes in the way they deal with staffing and other issues.

According to other experts, businesses are soon to face a significant new problem, never before dealt with in corporate America—a chronic shortage of workers with the skills our economy needs. Given increasing longevity, declining birthrates, and the disproportionate size of the baby boom generation now approaching traditional retirement age, the age profile of employees is changing dramatically.  Too few skilled young people are entering the workforce, and a debilitating “brain drain” looms. Organizations must look at the workforce quite differently and adapt management practices accordingly. And they must take action now—before the crisis hits full force—if they hope to ensure their talent supply in the decades to come.

In WORKFORCE CRISIS: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent, Ken Dychtwald, Tamara Erickson, and Robert Morison explore the unprecedented shift in the age distributions of the general population and the labor force, and show why no organization can ignore these demographic trends and their implications.  Considered by many to be the single most important trend of this century, the changing demographics will have – and is already having – a fundamental, pervasive impact both on the way business operates and on how each of us, as individual employees, live our lives