9 in 10 workers prepared to leave? Ground-breaking data for hiring managers

When the market is unpredictable, it’s hard to make decisions around hiring and team building. Managers may struggle to decide on a strategy and be left wondering how to optimise headcount. And even if you know exactly what your most effective team looks like – are you sure you can retain that team?

At PageGroup, we wanted to help managers understand exactly what the future could hold for their teams: stability, or more churn?

Our newest Talent Trends report, The Invisible Revolution, presents the remarkable results of our global survey of nearly 70,000 professionals. It provides new insight into the changing attitudes of the workforce and tells you exactly how to move the needle when it comes to hiring top talent and keeping your teams intact.

Download the full report

In this breakdown, we’ll be covering the key insights from our research that hiring managers and leaders need to know about.

The key first step: Understanding your workforce

Any successful manager knows the importance of understanding employee motivations. When it comes to retention, keeping employees engaged is essential – after all, a worker who has grown apathetic towards their current employer is a prime candidate for an early exit. Similarly, successful hiring hinges on making an attractive offer that is up to date with what workers really want.

But keeping track of workers’ attitudes has become harder and harder over the last few years, as priorities have continued to shift following the pandemic. Employees are noticeably less emotionally invested in their work, finding fulfillment in other aspects of their lives. For that reason, they are also less loyal to their employers.

Many commentators have detected this change – consider the prominence of trends like ‘quiet quitting’ and the ‘Great Resignation’. However, PageGroup’s research has now confirmed that an irreversible transformation has indeed occurred in the attitudes and priorities of professionals around the world. If managers want to grow or even maintain headcount, it is crucial to understand and adapt to this new reality.

4 Things Managers Should Know About the New, Empowered Workforce

Our research found several key shifts that transcended industries, geographies, and age groups:

Job loyalty is now the exception, not the rule. In the UK, 86% of employees are open to new job opportunities and half are actively searching for a new role or will do in the next six months. Moreover, eight in 10 respondents who had started a new job in the last year are still open to a move.
Work-life balance is the key to job satisfaction. It is now ranked by the workforce as more important to job satisfaction than salary and eight in 10 of respondents would choose work-life balance and mental health over career success. Over half of our respondents also said they would reject a promotion if they believed it would negatively impact their well-being.
The “Great Resignation” never ended. Last year, the rate of resignations was nearly triple that of 2021, when this term was in the headlines.
Openness to new opportunities isn’t being dampened by the worsening global economic outlook. In fact, 53% of UK professionals are more likely to look for a new job when the economic environment worsens.

How managers should respond to the Invisible Revolution

It’s clear that the hiring market is changing and team leaders in all workplaces will have their work cut out for them to stay ahead of the curve. So, what should you do with these insights and those in the report?

Here are a few basic – but critical – recommendations:

Fortify your EVP: First, ensure that your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is taking into account the new demands of the workforce. We know that workers are seeking a balance of salary, career growth, and flexibility. If you are not offering all three of these, your employees will look for them elsewhere.
Prepare for attrition: Second, it is clear that in this new environment, aiming for zero turnover is unrealistic. You can slow that rate of attrition, but eliminating it is not on the cards when employee loyalty is off the table. One way of controlling headcount is to embrace temporary and contract employees. This will provide certainty around timelines and keep hiring resources and strategies under your control. It also offers flexibility in a volatile market, which could be vital when budgets change.
Consider a recruitment partner: All of these extra efforts could add some strain to both your workload and that of your HR department. That’s why we also recommend working with an external recruitment partner like us. As you can see, we make it a priority to stay on top of shifting trends in the market and can help you navigate the changing tides of the job market.

Please reach out to us today to discuss your hiring needs, or the other findings of the report.

Download Talent Trends: The Invisible Revolution full report