Two recent national surveys indicate that U.S. employers may face the loss of employees now that the economy is rebounding. Those employees could be the ones you've been counting on to help your company remain competitive and sound. Many companies have been downsizing and as a result, pushed more work on existing employees while not increasing pay and benefits.
What's going to happen?
According to a recent survey from Yahoo! HotJobs, almost fifty per cent of the survey's respondents will be looking for new employment in the next twelve months.
These results clearly show that employers need to pay closer attention to their employees, or they may lose qualified and valuable personnel.
Employees are looking for a satisfactory salary. The survey results show the No. 1 reason of those who are looking for new employment is a better salary. The second most important reason is lack of potential career growth.
However, a good benefits package was cited as the top reason employees would stay with their current employer, as listed by employees not looking for new employment. Flexible work schedules and convenient commutes were listed as reasons for employees to stay with their current employer. The balance of work and life style remains important for employees.
Here's another alarming twist the survey revealed: About 35 percent of the survey respondents said they would "absolutely not" or "possibly not" recommend their employer to others. This clearly demonstrates that many employees are just not happy with their current jobs.
The second recent survey, conducted by human resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates and WorldatWork and involving 350 national companies, also yielded some serious food for thought.
Eighty-three percent of companies surveyed feel their pay-for-performance programs are only somewhat successful or not successful. The goals for their pay packages include improving financial performance (79 percent), retaining top performers (69 percent), and increasing customer service (59 percent).
The study lists the three factors that most affect the success of pay-for-performance programs: the company's culture and communication, its funding and differentiation, and how the program was measured.
The challenge of funding pay-for-performance programs was listed as the biggest hurdle for 73 percent of companies with unsuccessful programs. However, just under half of the very successful companies also said funding is very difficult.
So there you have it: Companies that have not kept up with pay and benefits for their key employees could see those people leaving. The coming labor shortage means when those people leave, the company will wind up paying more for the replacements, plus the cost of obtaining the new personnel.
What to do?
While you still have your key people on board, make the effort now to keep them. Check what they want. Determine what it will cost the company to find new, key employees.
Abandon pay-for-performance programs unless they are totally successful and understood by the employees. Examine the workloads.
These key people have probably helped the company through the past difficult years, and now they need to be rewarded for those efforts. Don't lose them!
Don't wait for your key people to announce that they are going, leaving the company with vacancies and burdening the remaining personnel with even more work. Now is the time to keep your good people.
William P. Miller, CAE
Executive Director
