Over a third (37%) of workers have admitted to taking steps to ‘prepare to look for another job’.
Career Cushioning – the process of being proactive about your career prospects to ‘soften the blow’ should anything go wrong with your current job – is a phenomenon that recruitment firm Robert Walters believes has grown in prominence as the UK continues to hover around the recessionary danger zone.
According to a poll of 2,000 white-collar workers, the leading reasons causing workers to ‘career cushion’ is a lack of job security from their company (72%), turbulent economic conditions (55%), internal changes within their business (45%), and low job satisfaction (33%).
Cushioning tactics in full flow
When asked what type of tactics workers were taking to create a ‘career cushion’ – monitoring the jobs market (66%) and ‘tidying up’ their CV (43%) came out on top.
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| Most common tactics for ‘career cushioning’ | |
| Monitoring jobs market | 66% |
| CV prep | 43% |
| Networking more | 36% |
| Applying for jobs | 33% |
| Upskilling / Training | 30% |
| Working with Career Coach or Recruiter | 22% |
| Adopting side-hustle | 15% |
Chris Poole, Managing Director of Robert Walters, comments:
“This survey highlights how acutely aware professionals are of the difficulties organisations are currently facing due to challenging economic conditions – hence the rise of ‘career cushioning’ tactics as a protective measure.
“Staff retention needs to be top of all employers list at the moment to ensure that employees don’t actually take the final step of applying for other roles.
“On the other side, my advice to professionals is to not be blind – if you are concerned about job security in any way then my advice would be to prepare for finding a new role sooner rather than later.
“Start with some very simple steps such as updating your LinkedIn profile, sign up to job alerts, and refresh your CV.”
The grass is not always greener
Interestingly, a quarter of professionals admitted that their perusal of the jobs market and self-assessment of their skills has led them to appreciate their employer more – with a further fifth admitting that they have discovered their current employer pays better than the market average.
Chris adds: “Career cushioning needn’t always be looked at as a negative by employers, in many cases it can lead to employees upskilling, being more determined to succeed or engaging in more networking – bringing greater value to the business.
“There is no guarantee that those that “career cushion” will leave, it’s an old adage but employees researching opportunities elsewhere can often illustrate to them that the grass isn’t always greener.”
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.
- Amelia Brand
- Amelia Brand
- Amelia Brand
- Amelia Brand
