There are six emerging “megatrends” which are fundamentally changing relationships between businesses, their customers and employees, and which will have an increasingly significant impact on employee engagement levels and future retention strategies, according to a recent research report.
Megatrends are lasting, deep-seated developments with far-reaching effects on societies, economies and organisations, and the six megatrends identified in the Hay Group report are: globalisation 2.0, environmental crisis, demographic change, individualism, digitisation and technological convergence.
“The megatrends are fundamentally changing how we work, what we care about in the workplace and what we need from our employers,” the report said.
“To succeed, businesses must rethink how they engage and enable their people and earn the loyalty of their employees. This is a critical time to reshape your engagement strategy and develop an innovative new talent management approach that responds to the changes happening around us.”
Attrition to increase
The research report, which took in more than 300 heads of employee engagement from the world’s largest companies to better understand the challenges businesses face in retaining valued staff, found that more than three million Australians could soon switch jobs as local businesses struggle with an increasingly transient workforce.
It found more than 25 per cent of Australian workers will change jobs by 2018, with factors such as global competition for talent increasingly influencing staff retention.
Australian organisations are vulnerable to losing workers because of Asia’s continued economic growth and increasing interstate moves, said Steve Ewin, head of Hay Group Insight Pacific.
By 2018 more than 51,000 Australian workers will head overseas to find fixed or permanent employment opportunities, while an additional 330,000 people will move interstate each year, according to government statistics.
Ewin said the impact of the shifting workforce was being felt throughout the business community.
“In the past, Australia’s brain drain focused on experienced or specialist employees that were at the very top of their profession,” he said.
“The continued economic growth in regions such as Asia and Eastern Europe is now driving intense competition for emerging talent.
“We’re seeing an increased willingness amongst skilled workers in their early thirties to move in search of professional and personal fulfilment.
“Their tendency to look offshore is impacting a generation of future business leaders as well as potentially exacerbating existing challenges of managing an aging workforce.”
Tailoring engagement
One in five businesses believe an increasing globalised workforce poses the greatest threat to their employee engagement strategy, according to the report, which found that only 30 per cent of respondents thought their company was adequately prepared for the future workforce changes.
A further 84 per cent of companies believed they now needed to change their engagement approach to better retain staff.
Key to this adaptation was developing engagement strategies that no longer focused on money, while other priorities such as self-development, recognition and work-life balance were now major influences in employee career decisions.
Commenting on the study’s findings, Amanda Revis, group executive, human resources, Suncorp, said organisations could benefit from a more personalised approach to engagement strategies.
“Smarter and more flexible ways of working means we can attract highly talented people who have something else in their life more important than work,” said Revis.
“We give people the flexibility to decide how, when and where they work. It’s all about making sure people can be their very best – both inside and outside work.”
To meet the changes being driven by the megatrends, the report said future approaches to engagement will need to be:
- Continuous: engagement must be part of everyday business operations, not just an annual exercise. And it needs to be constantly monitored and managed over a broad range of channels.
- Responsive: engagement strategies can no longer be confined to the four walls of the organisation. All companies are intricately connected to the wider world. Engagement approaches need to be dynamic, constantly adapting to a changing business environment.
- Personal: as workforces become more diverse and focused on personal needs, one-size-fits-all approaches will not work. But engagement strategies should consider not only what the organisation can do for employees, but also how individuals can take responsibility for their own engagement at work.
- Localised: the days of managing engagement from only the corporate centre are over. With continued globalisation, engagement professionals will need autonomy to take the actions that will drive teams to succeed in their local markets.
For more information see the Hay Group report The New Rules of Engagement.
