Bosses beware, your staff are planning to leave you
More than four-fifths of all workers plan to change jobs within two years, according to a major survey.
THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Irish employees are eyeing a new position and are planning to make the leap within the next two years, a major study has found.
According to the annual Hays salary and recruiting trends guide, more than four-fifths of workers plan to make a job change and over half are unsatisfied with their current salaries.
The survey, which polled 1,300 employers and employees across the country, was carried out by the recruitment firm and focused mainly on professional service roles, such as accounting, IT and insurance.
Salary
Just over one-third of respondents said their salaries had increased by more than 2.5% during the past year. The remaining two-thirds either took a pay cut, had their pay packets stay the same or enjoyed smaller raises.
The report found that while salary increases remained “relatively modest as a whole”, there were some notable exceptions in sectors such as IT, construction and finance.
Pay rises of up to 10% were seen for positions such as project managers, quantity surveyors, building services engineers and architects.
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During the year the majority of senior appointments on salaries of €65,000 and above were in multinationals, however this trend was beginning to change with public companies and SMEs offering increasingly competitive packages.
Not all about money
Speaking to Fora, Hays director Mike McDonagh said that although pay is a factor leading many employees to consider a change in job, it is not the only motivator.
“Pay is part of it, but once the pay is at a near-level playing field it’s all about other things like mentoring and career development,” he said.
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“People want to feel like they are moving forward, for example working with the latest technology in IT or working on large projects in construction. I think that people will be flexible enough on salary, plus or minus a few thousand euro, if they have those things.”
The study also found that other benefits, such as flexible working arrangements, remained important to employees.
McDonagh said that many workers are starting to look at other positions to ensure they are benefiting from the economic recovery and added that he expected the survey’s results to be largely reflected in the wider workforce.
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“I would say that it would be similar for executives or for shop floor workers,” he said.
“If you are hearing that the economy is getting better (and) positive news in the press you may ask, ‘does it apply to me?’. If not you may look at moving.”
He said it was difficult to predict how many of those people who said they intend to switch job actually follow through but added it was likely there would be a high conversion rate.
