According to research by Personio, 46% of employees are considering a job move in the next 12 months. Even if these employees don't make the jump, that's still a significant proportion of the workforce that feels disengaged and unmotivated to work.
Employee apathy is nothing new – there have been unhappy employees as long as there have been employers to work for. However, the unique set of circumstances staff have been working under for the past two years has created a catalyst for more workers to question whether there are better, more fulfilling opportunities to be had elsewhere.
This is particularly true of remote workers. According to Personio's survey, which quizzed 1,205 senior HR decision makers and 5,000 employees in the UK and Ireland, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, workers who have primarily worked remotely over the past 12 months are more likely to be looking for new jobs.
There is a danger that remote working could be fostering higher levels of dissatisfaction and feelings of disconnection among staff. At the same time, return-to-office mandates by employers could frustrate workers who have enjoyed more freedom in recent months.
Hiring managers appear to be aware of the scale of the problem, although many feel that leadership teams might not be so concerned – or otherwise aware – of their company's own skill shortages. Almost two fifths (38%) of HR decision-makers surveyed said they expected to see more staff than usual leaving their company in the next 6-12 months, and yet 48% felt that their leadership teams weren't giving enough urgency to the matter.
Indeed, employers face an uphill battle when it comes to trying to tie down key staff amid a significant reshuffle of the workforce.
Stressful working environments, a lack of appreciation for the work they do and limited career progression opportunities have sent a ripple of dissatisfaction throughout the workforce, all of which companies will have to tackle if they hope to keep headcounts from dwindling.
And yet, the strain on hiring managers themselves threatens to make a bad situation even worse.
According to data from Greenhouse, 69% of hiring managers in the UK and Europe are experiencing burnout because of the current job market, with the same proportion feeling that hiring is only going to become more challenging for the remainder of 2022.
Not helping matters is evidence that current processes for hiring and onboarding staff aren't fit for purpose, particularly now that many candidates are being interviewed and onboarded remotely. In Greenhouse's survey of 1,500 c-suite executives and hiring managers, 20% cited unstructured and ineffective hiring processes as their primary cause of frustration.
