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by John Zappe
A survey released this morning says employers are fooling themselves believing workers are content simply to have a job.
According to the survey conducted by Monster and Human Capital Institute, 84 percent of employers indicated they thought their were workers content because they were working. However, only 58 percent of workers said that.
For workers, the disconnect extends to their feelings about their workload, the longer hours required of them, and their willingness to give their employer the benefit of the doubt for layoffs.
“Today’s employers feel that employees are loyal due to the economic times, but the reality is they are not,” said Katherine Jones, HCI Research Fellow. “Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that when the economy turns for the better, employers could find themselves with valued employees jumping ship. This places pressure on them to put retention measures in place now.”
Monster and HCI conducted the survey in May and June to assess the impact of the recession on workers and companies. More than 700 companies and almost 5,000 passive and active job seekers participated, responding to questions about their attitudes to work, employees, their post-recession expectations, and purchasing plans.
The three-part report examines the recession’s impact from the worker’s and employer’s perspective and how the government’s stimulus program may change the workplace.
While the survey showed employers understood their workforce morale has slipped and stress is up because of the recession, it also shows that employees believe their bosses are taking advantage of the situation. Among the findings:
- 57 percent of workers believe employers are exploiting the recession to drive longer hours and lower pay from their workforces;
- Only 26 percent excuse their employers for requiring layoffs and longer hours because they believe their employer’s hands were forced by the recession;
- 58 percent believe employers are less concerned about employee retention, and 50 percent of workers are more concerned about top performers leaving than before the recession;
- 53 percent have a decreased company loyalty;
- 79 percent are more likely to be seeking jobs elsewhere.
Each of the three parts offers insights and conclusions drawn from the survey results. Equally as important is the glimpse the overall report offers of the future: Boomers won’t be retiring in the numbers once thought, thus offsetting, at least partially, the worker shortage; younger people are likely to be more inclined to seek recession-proof or at least recession-resistant jobs or self-employment, and; the general skepticism of Gen Y toward corporate America may be passed down to the following generation.
Perhaps most immediately, there may be a mass turnover of employees, especially of top performers, once companies begin hiring again.
Oct 14, 2009, 8:00 am ET
Are you Disconnected?
Payscale.com reports TTU degrees give grads highest salary potential of all Tennessee public universities
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (Aug. 10, 2009) — Tennessee Tech University is one of the nation’s top public universities, and the top in Tennessee, when it comes to the potential salary graduates can earn when they hit the job market.That ranking was made public recently by Payscale.com, a company that owns the largest online employee salary database in the world and specializes in compensation data.
According to Payscale.com, the starting median salary for a Tennessee Tech graduate is $44,500. After 15 years of experience, the median salary is $79,900, as reported by TTU graduates. The report also names Tennessee Tech’s College of Engineering as one of the nation’s “Best Engineering Colleges” based on salary potential for graduates. Also, professional mechanical engineering graduates named Tennessee Tech as one of the Top 20 most popular mechanical engineering schools in the country. TTU offers nine of Payscale.com’s Top 10 College Majors that Lead to High Salaries: chemical engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, economics, physics, mechanical engineering, computer science, industrial engineering and environmental engineering. Topping the list is chemical engineering, where the starting median salary is $65,700 and the mid-career median is $107,000. Tennessee Tech is known as Tennessee’s technological university, but houses six strong academic divisions offering 44 bachelor’s degrees and 20 graduate programs -- the College of Agricultural and Human Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business, College of Education, College of Engineering, and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Extended Education. Payscale.com issues an annual College Salary Report that focuses on the country’s most lucrative majors to help students maximize their potential for getting the best monetary return on their college investment.
A raft of recent surveys shows that the recession is having a profound impact on workers and employment trends worldwide. Even though they measure different things — global hiring, immigration repatriation, and career trends — there’s a theme here, which is that the economy is global and when it recovers, things will not go back to the way they were.
There’s the report from Monster this week that says vast numbers of workers are ready to swit
ch careers for a new job. Another survey, this one from SearchPath International and Antal International, give us a global view of hiring — and firing — trends.
The Global Snapshot offers clues to where the hottest markets in the world are for managers and professionals. (Hint: Think Russia, China, India, Egypt, and Eastern Europe.)
That report dovetails with last week’s USA Today report about an emerging brain drain of managers and professionals from the U.S. to China and India.
Vivek Wadhwa
Vivek Wadhwa, executive in residence at Duke University and a senior research associate at Harvard University, surveyed some 1,200 immigrants who returned to their native country. He reports that improved opportunities at home, coupled with U.S. visa policies, makes it likely that up to 200,000 white collar migrants will return to China and India in the next five years.
A UPI version of the story includes this comment from Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington: “China needs a lot of well-trained personnel.”
No surprise there, especially no surprise after you peek at The Global Snapshot report that says 74 percent of the surveyed companies in China report they are hiring skilled managers and other white collar professionals now. Also not surprisingly, the report commentary notes that there has been a better than 10 percent rise in the companies shedding workers, which the report notes, suggests “that employers are taking advantage of current conditions to ‘weed out’ less productive members of staff.”
Other hot Asian markets for these same workers: Singapore, Pakistan and Hong Kong. India is bit less robust with 51 percent of the surveyed companies hiring now. But give it a quarter and 66 percent say they’ll be looking for managers and professionals.
In the U.S., 55 percent of respondents report hiring, with the same percentage planning to hire next quarter.
The recession has also got workers thinking that it may be wise to find a new career.
Monster released a poll of workers in North America and Europe showing 89 percent of them would consider or would make a career change if it meant finding a new job. While only 11 percent of the 22,444 visitors to Monster’s sites in Europe, Canada, or the U.S. said they wouldn’t change careers — at least not now — 49 percent said they’ve been wanting to change careers and are ready now.
In Spain, 92 percent of the visitors to the Monster site who took the poll said they were ready to make a career change. They’re feeling the pressure; 44 percent said they feel they must take the first job that comes along. That percentage contrasts sharply with respondents elsewhere, only 23 percent of whom felt they needed to pretty much take anything.
No doubt those who visit Monster sites are motivated job seekers, and probably more willing to switch industries than those who aren’t looking. But when half of those taking the poll answer the question, “Would you consider a job in another industry?” with a “Yes, I’ve been wanting to make a career change,” you can figure that change is underway.
