EY Study: Almost half of the employees are willing to change jobs

  Almost half of employees, 43% declare they are ready to give up their present job in the next 12 months, on the background of a rising inflation, a labour force on the drop and an increase of jobs offering flexibility, a study made by EY about returning to work shows. Last year only 7% of employees declared they are willing to leave.   The study “Returning to work. New conditions”, shows that, as more countries are getting out of the Covid 19 pandemic, employees win a significant influence over employers and the “list of their wishes” to be granted by employers is changing.   The EY study, which analyzes opinions of over 1,500 business leaders, over 17,000 employees from 22 countries and 26 industrial sectors, speaks about an important percentage of employees (42%) who say salary increases are needed to approach personnel fluctuation, an opinion with which only 18% of employers agree.   As for getting back to work, the study shows a clear opposition between what employers want and what employees are willing to do. Thus, 22% of employers announce they want employees to come to work five days a week; in exchange, 80% of employees declare they want to work from home at least two days a week.   “During the pandemic, the candidates' main interest when they were looking for a new job or of the employees when keeping their existing job migrated from employer's stability to upgrading/transforming the benefits package and, later on, to work flexibility. This last survey shows that, as employers have offered more and more flexible work means in the last two years, higher salaries represent now the biggest motivation for changing the job, especially when considering rising inflation and available free roles,” said Claudia Sofianu, partner, leader of the income tax and social contributions department, EY Romania.   With a record inflation in many world countries, more than a third who study the market (35%) say they are mainly interested in salary increases, while 25% of them say they want a professional increase.   Flexible work engagements, which have been, by far, one of the most important factors in the mobility of employees, have lost their traction.   Thus, only 19%of employees are looking for flexibility at work, while 17% say that what would determine them to move are benefits promoting health and well being at the office.   If we are considering the answers received from the angle of the respondents' age, we would see that employees of Z generation and millennium people in the US are the ones most probable of giving up their jobs this year (53%), while an analysis made through the point of view of sectors where the respondents activate, show us that the employees from technology and hardware are most willing to leave (60%).   The perception on company culture and on productivity changes. It is interesting that the employees' wish to look for new roles persists, despite the fact that they have relatively optimistic opinions on company culture. The number of employees who see improvements in the culture of their organization has grown from 48% to 61% since the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic.   On the other hand, the employers' confidence in company culture dropped from 77% to 57%, Moreover, while employees think new work ways have increased productivity, the companies' confidence in their own activity is eroded by the increase of the business figure – only 32% of employers say they have succeeded in increasing productivity and culture, through hybrid work and investments in facilities and technology on the job.   In conclusion, flexibility and hybrid work are the new normality, as we anticipated last year. Employees are no longer afraid of leaving their jobs to take advantage of extensive career opportunities in career laying pressure on the labour market.   However, employers are reticent in resetting salaries and career opportunities in order to keep employees, being in their turn worried for the increase of inflation/labor force cost and the complexity of old organization structure,” the authors of the study say.   The survey was made between January and March 2022 and 17,498 answers were received from employees and 1,575 from employers of 22 countries and 26 industries.