New data shows that UK employees are increasingly placing salary packages as the most important factor when it comes to career management.
SD Worx, a HR and payroll solutions company, finds that salary packages are being placed as the most important priority for employees in the UK.
Placed second was a strong focus on what the job will require whilst job security ranked third. This ultimately indicates that while pay is an important motivating factor, employees find it important to know what they will need to be carrying out day-to-day and the sense that the job role will be a stable one.
Another key consideration for UK employees is transparency with employee rewards. Nearly half of workers (45 per cent) cited knowing exactly what their employer offers as part of their remuneration package including salary, benefits and annual leave as very important for them when considering a job role.
Linked to this, over a quarter of workers based in the UK (28 per cent) stated that they feel comfortable negotiating or asking for a pay rise. When further prompted on this, almost four in ten workers (38 per cent) said that this is because they know how salaries can be optimised to maximise employee take-home pay.
However, according to the survey, some factors which have fallen to the way-side for employees are company culture and vision and policy. This ultimately raises questions about how exactly COVID-19 and the shift to remote working has impacted the social and cultural element of the workforce with fewer employees regarding this as important.
Cathy Geerts, Chief HR Officer at SD Worx, said:
Since March last year, businesses globally have tried to understand how the pandemic has impacted the workforce and what implications would come out of it. And it hasn’t always been clear. But this research highlights just how employee motivations are evolving in this era, with UK employees looking at ways to better themselves and solidify their future in unprecedented times.
With insights like this and the right HR processes and adaptive technology in place , businesses will be able to understand what measures need to be implemented, with an aim of improving the employee experience, job security and retention. After all, it is the workforce that ensure the continuity of any business. So making sure the expectations and needs of employees are met should always be front of mind.
*To obtain these results, SD Worx surveyed employees in Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to find out what these workers consider important in the context of their work. 5,683 employees were surveyed across the countries in total and 649 of these respondents were UK workers. The survey was conducted between the 8th and 26th of June 2020.
Monica Sharma is an English Literature graduate from the University of Warwick. As Editor for HRreview, her particular interests in HR include issues concerning diversity, employment law and wellbeing in the workplace. Alongside this, she has written for student publications in both England and Canada. Monica has also presented her academic work concerning the relationship between legal systems, sexual harassment and racism at a university conference at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.