As Published in Business 2 Business, November 2003

Employees have feet .and feet are made for walking

Exposed: The desires of employed and unemployed county job seekers

A funny thing recently happened to over fifty Lancaster County employers while attending a job fair. Instead of speaking with a parade of out-of-work, humbled candidates pleading for jobs, employers discovered that nearly four out of every ten job hunters dropping off resumes were already working!! Despite the doom and gloom of what is being called a jobless economic recovery, already employed workers are out there actively looking for the better opportunity.

Over 700 of the 1000-plus job seekers who attended the September 2003 Lancaster Chamber Fall Job Fair completed a confidential and anonymous survey sponsored by Success Performance Solutions. Employers can learn a great deal about what the future search for workers holds from these job-seeking candidates. The rest of this article reveals the results of the survey

All is not calm on the front-lines

Not surprisingly, 69 percent of the employed job seekers said they were dissatisfied with their current job. You would expect this if they were attending a job fair.

Why were they looking? Seventy-three percent were dissatisfied with their pay and 72 percent were dissatisfied with their benefits. That's also not surprising.

But if there is even a lick of truth that employees will stick with their jobs if they are shown respect from their supervisor, then employers should stand up and take notice.

Nearly 54 percent of the employed job seekers were satisfied with their direct supervisor/manager's ability to manage. And of those satisfied with their supervisor, 57 percent said they would very likely be working at their same job two years from now.

This concurs with the 2003 Emerging Workforce Study recently released by Spherion, a national consulting work. The study reports that 51 percent of U.S. workers are extremely likely or very likely to look for a new job or work situation during the coming year. And nearly 7 out of 10 U.S. workers say job change will be at their own initiative.

But from what these job fair attendees said, it appears getting respect and recognition from their supervisor is a strong enough factor to keep or at the very least postpone nearly 80 percent of them from jumping ship even if offered more pay from another employer.

A Wake-up Call.

With labor costs and benefits skyrocketing, especially employer sponsored health care, employers might heed what job seekers are saying in planning future recruitment and retention activities.

Respect and recognition from a supervisor costs almost nothing. And yet nearly 45 percent of all the respondents were dissatisfied with their supervisor's ability to manage. Directing attention to the supervisor-employee relationship and focusing on the training and development of supervisors can reap big dividends.

Employee respect and a culture that walks the talk can also go a long way toward keeping the talent an employer already has. Of those employed but still seeking better opportunities, 87 percent felt it was important to work for a business with a strong code of ethics.

But can they do the job?

The good news is that over 68 percent of the unemployed rated their overall job skills as above average or excellent. Unfortunately when asked to rate their individual skills sets, their assessment was average at best.

Over 56 percent felt their computer skills were no better than average. Fifty percent rated their Internet and emailing skills as average at best.

When asked about how well they understood current business trends and how a business operates and makes money, less than half (45 percent) rated their skill as excellent, with only 30 percent of 27 to 35 year olds feeling prepared.

With across the board layoffs, early retirements and the impending exodus of aging boomers, the replacement workers by their own admission feel several of their critical skills are average at best.

Just slightly more (47 percent) felt they had the skills to handle stressful situations even when under a lot of pressure. Age didn't seem to make much of a difference. With increasing responsibilities and the pressure on for employees to produce more with less, this is a big problem.

Only 43 percent rated themselves as having the skills to solve complex problems in a logical and systematic way and just 56 percent felt they made good decisions in a timely manner with effective results.

Now maybe you feel it is not the responsibility of hourly workers to solve complex problems and understand business trends. But over 38 percent of the respondents were supervisors, middle managers and executives and the self-assessment of their skills wasn't much better.

Pay me now.and pay me later.

Twenty-nine percent of the employed job seekers said that better pay in their next job was the single most important benefit they wanted in their next job. Better pay was most important for only 17 percent of the unemployed. Not surprisingly 28 percent of the unemployed ranked job security as the most important benefit they wanted. The second most popular benefit (20 percent) the employed wanted was job security too.

Twenty-two percent of the employed and 24 percent of the unemployed ranked health care benefits as the second most important benefit they wanted in their next job.

Respect and recognition from their supervisors was the overall third important benefit and second to only job security as most important for the unemployed.

A challenging future

As many businesses are finding out, the skill sets of people are being stretched if not exceeded. The shortage of skilled workers is already painfully present and to make matters worse, forty percent of job seekers are employees considering a switch. As the economy improves and more people are needed to produce the products and deliver the services in a global marketplace with a growing and aging population, job hopping will return.

Managers would benefit from examining very closely the capacity and capability of their workers and do what it takes to ratchet up their abilities and performance. To attract and retain these best workers, recognizing the critical role that the supervisor plays in retaining employees, even when they are dissatisfied with pay and benefits, is imperative. Minimizing turnover and improving productivity can't happen without a stable, talented workforce and effective supervisors play a key role in keeping the workforce wheels rolling.

Competition in the future won't be very forgiving to those companies that don't have the right talent and just the right amount of it when they need it.