Many young workers are looking to move jobs after feeling undervalued and a lack of trust from their employers.
New research by Achievers and Censuswide shows over a third of young workers (37 per cent) do not feel trusted or heard, leaving almost four in five looking for a new job.
Workers aged between 16-24 were significantly more likely to report not feeling trusted to work remotely. Close to two-fifths of this group (37 per cent) stated this compared to just a fifth overall (21 per cent).
This has led to two-thirds of young workers (65 per cent) working longer hours and over half (55 per cent) working during holidays or skipping them entirely.
Employees in this group said the top ways to make them feel more valued were customer recognition (21 per cent), senior leader recognition (19 per cent), recognition in front of the company and financial reward were tied at 15 per cent.
This not only illustrates the importance of recognition itself to this age group, but the public visibility of that recognition.
In addition, despite many businesses turning to staff during the pandemic to gauged their feelings, many young workers (32 per cent) did not feel as if their feedback offered to employers was acted upon.
As such, the research offered five main recommendations for improving employee engagement:
- Focussing on feedback from staff
- Creating a culture of recognition which is pervasive at every level
- Valuing everyone’s views, regardless of their age
- Delivering on diversity which would create a strong sense of belonging at work
- Tackling presenteeism in the workplace which currently leaves staff feeling untrusted
Jon Maddison, EMEA Managing Director, Achievers commented:
Although the results of our survey may seem alarming, there’s still time for most companies to communicate with their people, then take steps to boost engagement and prevent churn. The sooner companies act to instil beneficial practices like listening, recognition, and reward into their cultures, the more likely they are to turn this situation around.
*The Achievers survey was conducted by independent research company Censuswide, polling 2,005 employees in the UK and Germany between 23.04.2021 and 27.04.2021. Censuswide abides by and employs members of the Market Research Society, which is based on the ESOMAR principles.
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.
