Career Research On UK Workers Current Attitudes To Careers
Career Research On UK Workers Current Attitudes To Careers
The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) have recently released their employee attitudes survey of some 185,000 respondants.
The area of career development appears to have been hit particularly hard by the recession, with just 24% of employees agreeing they are learning new skills as a result of the recession compared with 45% disagreeing (net agree score –21). Only 7% of respondents agree there are more opportunities to progress, in contrast to 58% disagreeing (net agree score –51), while 13% agree they are confident of finding work elsewhere with 58% disagreeing (net agree score –45).
Private sector employees are the most likely to be concerned about being made redundant. However, the net agree score has decreased from პ in the last quarter to Ʒ in this quarter. This suggests that while concern over redundancy remains high, it has eased slightly during the last three months.
In the public sector, the net agreement score over concern about redundancy has fallen to –17 from –24 from the previous quarter. This could be an indication that public sector employees expect to be hit harder by redundancies in the future than they have in the past.
While job security fears may have eased slightly, the proportion of employees thinking it will be difficult or very difficult to find a new job if they are made redundant has climbed to 64%, compared with 61% for the previous quarter.
Private sector employees are more likely to be pessimistic over their chances of finding a new job compared with those working in the public and nonprofit sectors.
Older workers are also gloomier over their job-seeking prospects than younger workers, with those aged 45 or above thinking it will be hardest to find new workOf those who would like to change their job in the next year, 35% will be looking for a job in the same sector as their current job, 24% will be looking in a different sector and 30% will be looking in both their own and a different sector; a further 11% are unsure at this stage.
Private sector employees are most likely to be looking to change sectors in their careers , particularly those working in banking and finance, wholesale and retail and construction – all sectors which have been hit hard by redundancies.
The top three reasons why UK employees would ideally like to change their job is to increase job satisfaction (57%), to do a different type of work (43%) and for better pay and benefits (39%). Other popular reasons for wanting to change jobs are to learn new things (37%), to reduce stress (28%), opportunities for promotion and upward promotion (26%) and because they are unhappy with the leadership of their senior management (22%)
Employees working in the banking and finance sector are most likely to cite job satisfaction as the main reason for changing job, they are also most likely to see learning new things as a reason for moving jobs.
The most popular method for career search and looking for a job is local newspaper advertisements (42%) and recruitment agencies (35%). Interestingly, recommendations from friends are high on the list (28%). Corporate websites are also used by 27% of Respondents employed in the voluntary sector and in respondents. Despite the hype surrounding Web 2.0 and social networking, only 6% of respondents use social networking sites (such as LinkedIn) when just over a third (35%) feel that employers would be searching for jobs.
Worryingly for employers, the survey suggests that many employees have been left unhappy with management as a result of job losses. Seven out of ten employees whose organisations have made redundancies report that the job cuts have damaged morale.
A quarter of respondents agree they are less motivated in their jobs as a result of losing colleaguesand just over a fifth of employees (22%) agree that they feel the redundancies were not handled well and they are looking to change employer as soon as the jobs market improves.
More than half of employees feel under increased pressure to perform and prove their worth following redundancies. The proportion of employees saying they are under excessive pressure has increased compared to last quarter’s survey and nearly half of respondents report an increase in work related stress in their careers.
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