During the pandemic many people on furlough felt stuck in their jobs, with a feeling of being “in limbo”. Their time at home gave them the space to evaluate their roles, their priorities and think about where they wanted to spend their time. Having more time with their family, spending less time commuting and having fewer interactions with colleagues has resulted in a shift in attitudes to how we work.
For some businesses this has resulted in the loss of key employees and the struggle to replace them is very real. So, the need to retain talent is now more important than ever.
Offering more money is often the go-to option, especially with increasing fuel and food prices but with the current shift in people’s values and priorities, employees are looking for more than money from their employers.
To help any business facing these challenges, we have shared below our insights into what employees are looking for as a consequence of their shift in workplace attitude.
Work from anywhere
The recent requirement (for some businesses) to have employees work at home or away from the workplace, has changed many people’s beliefs and approach to how and where people can work. Employees are looking for the freedom to adjust their working hours around their home life and providing this opportunity is a powerful way for employers to increase efficiency, motivation and retention.
This is about where people work, when they work and how they work. This will be different for different people so exploring what your employees are looking for and what you can give them is key.
Capturing the culture
The downside of hybrid working is the difficulty of ensuring your employees feel part of the workplace culture. This is particularly important for new starters. What is the culture of your workplace if there is not a recognised, identifiable workplace and people are not necessarily working in the same place or at the same time as one another?
Culture now needs to be developed in different ways; facilitating individuals and teams to physically meet to collaborate and learn from each other, as well as virtually. Businesses need to encourage social and team building activities so people have more opportunity to develop their working relationships and build their understanding and appreciation one another. We encourage the mentoring and coaching of new joiners so they learn about how things work and start to feel part of a wider team at a faster pace and in a more structured way than waiting to get that understanding through day to day work.
When people are working remotely a conscious effort is needed to stop them drifting away from the team culture. Therefore, more regular contact, which is not just focussed on work needs to be introduced. Now the pandemic is behind us, a new way of working needs to be clearly structured around the individual needs of the employees.
Who benefits from benefits?
Employees are looking for different rewards and benefits than they were pre-pandemic. Whether this is in the form of shorter working hours, more holiday, sabbaticals, hybrid or home working, everything needs to be assessed.
In a multi-generational workforce the benefits people are looking can be very different and varied. One person may be looking to put more money in their pension scheme whereas another may want gym membership or time off to pursue other interests. The relative costs of these benefits need to weighed up both for the employee and the employer. Private health care and life insurance can be an expensive benefit for employers, whereas employees may get more satisfaction from a team lunch every month.
A flexible benefits package which allows employees to choose the benefits which are most relevant to their own circumstances and responds to what they are looking for, is the most effective and may not be the most expensive.
Invest in curiosity
One of the main reasons employees change jobs is for career progression. To mitigate this, talk regularly to your team about their aspirations, what they want to learn and invest in their training and encouraging their curiosity. If we are not growing our employees, they are stagnating and possibly, also our business.
Invest in face to face training, wherever possible. Online training was a necessity in lockdown but employees get so much more benefit from interacting and learning from others. This key investment may make the difference between keeping and losing your key talent.
Remember the person
Often when we are communicating in the workplace, either face to face or online it is very task focussed, about our work. Now, more than ever, employee wellbeing needs to be considered. Taking time to talk about personal issues, family, mental health, is a key factor and making your employees feel you are interested in them and care about their lives.
It is not about the role; it is about the person doing the role. Treating people as individuals helps foster a feeling of team spirit and understanding.
