Why keeping staff will still be a challenge

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An employee’s desire to stay with their current employer is continuing to decrease, according to a vast global study.

Kincentric, an employee engagement and HR consultancy services, released a report on employee engagement trends over the past three years based on input from 12 million employees in more than 125 countries.

The 2022 Kincentric Report on Global Trends in Engagement found employee engagement is at its lowest point in the last three years at just 62 per cent in the first quarter of this year — a drop of seven points from the same point the year before and down from 73 per cent in Q2 2020.

It highlighted the fact that one’s desire to stay within their current company continues to decrease. This, the report said, indicates that turnover may remain a persistent challenge. And it’s middle managers who are feeling more pressure than ever as they reported a 10-point decline in work-life balance compared to 2019.

“The last few years have seen an unprecedented amount of disruption, from the ongoing pandemic to global social unrest; to that end, we’ve also seen a huge shift in how, when and where people work,” said Jeff Jolton, managing director of research and insights at Kincentric.

The group noted how so-called “stay interviews” can help with retention. While its success depends on the willingness of the employee to give honest and transparent feedback, these interviews can help employers develop better relations with staff and understand issues important to them.

Kincentric highlighted three other areas that it found interesting in its findings:

• Only 50 per cent of employees feel their organization has sufficient staffing to get work done, leading to concern around support.
• A compelling vision of the future can be a game changer: Employees reported eight times more engagement when senior leaders made them feel excited about the future.
• Employees want to know how they fit in. As employees deal with a changing environment, they want to better understand where they fit into the organization’s future. That said, just 59 per cent feel recognized for their efforts and just 54 per cent believe they have future career opportunities at their company.

There is no magic bullet, Jolton noted. Simply getting better in one area won’t cut it.

“Rather, it is the culmination of multiple and simultaneous active employee experience initiatives such as recognition, career development, performance management, effective infrastructure and staffing, communicating vision, caring leadership and a positive mindset around change that correlate positively with the degree of employee engagement and enable organizations to successfully engage and retain their employees,” he said. “Now is the time for business and HR leaders to assess, determine the right steps to take for their culture, and ultimately empower and inspire their people.”