Nomadic employees to give Britain's bosses a retention headache

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THIS WEEK'S HIGHLIGHTS

More than four out of 10 British workers plan to change jobs within the next year, with almost a quarter citing a lack of career advancement as the main reason they will be heading for the door.

According to the latest workplace survey by recruitment website totaljobs.com, employers’ failure to keep their workers motivated has resulted in the development of the nomadic employee.

This is especially noticeable in workers aged 20 and under where half of the workforce have already had between two and five jobs since leaving full-time education.

The spectre of growing retention problem shows no sign of slowing either, with more than a third of respondents saying that they felt it was acceptable to stay in a job for less than three years.

The totaljobs survey is only the latest is a spate of research that makes uncomfortable reading for Britain's bosses. A Work Foundation report last year argued that they key to understanding this 'generation Y' is the realisation that today’s 18-24 year-olds are a highly pragmatic generation.

Endless rounds of corporate restructuring and the resultant redundancies mean that they do not view security as being guaranteed the current job, the Work Foundation argued. Instead young workers want to acquire skills and experience that will make them attractive to the market. This results in individuals wanting to exit an organisation and eventually doing so.

Last week, consultancy IRS also found that British workers are some of the least engaged and emotionally attached to their companies in the world and the most likely to want to move jobs.

Meanwhile, a study by Investors in People found earlier this year that more than four out of ten employees believe that job content or the challenge a job presents are the main motivator in the workplace.

Totaljobs paints a similar picture, finding that salary inducements and flexitime do little to keep workers motivated in their jobs despite recent Government attempts to promote flexibility in the workforce.

Only two per cent cited work-life balance benefits such as flexi-time as a motivating factor in their job. Instead, almost half (46 per cent) said that the variety and challenge of their role is what keeps them motivated while one in five pointed to career advancement opportunities.

Totaljobs' Keith Robinson said that he results underline that the UK workforce no longer believe in the concept of ’a job for life’.

"Companies need realise that they must offer employees consistent career advancement if they are to attract and retain this new breed of worker or risk losing their best talent to competitors," he said.