A majority of workers want more money but see
little room for growth in their current roles with no discernible career path,
according to a recently released study of 20,000 global workers from Towers
Watson, a New York City-based professional services company with an emphasis on
human resource management. Seventy-four percent of workers surveyed would love
to see higher pay, but only 22 percent believe it is achievable in their
current company. Couple those statistics with the 51 percent who believe they
have no clear path for advancement and the 43 percent who see structures in
place that preclude opportunities, and you can see workers feeling
boxed in and expecting to hold on as long as they can.
"The recession has clearly prompted many
employees to rethink their priorities and focus on a longer-term commitment to
their employer in return for some semblance of job security — despite the cuts
or elimination of many programs, from bonuses to training, traditionally used
as retention tools," said Laura Sejen, Talent & Rewards spokesperson,
in a Towers Watson statement. "Where once employers fretted over a ‘war
for talent,’ they must now plan for a workforce that appears ready to settle in
for years — perhaps even decades."
When it comes to retirement, 35 percent of workers
do not expect to have financial security throughout retirement, and in
the U.S. 30 percent of workers expect to work until age 70 or later.
For
health care during retirement years, only 37 percent or respondents
believe they
will be able to manage their own medical needs.
"Employees get that they’re primarily
responsible for their financial security in retirement, but they don’t feel
they have the understanding, education or tools to make the right
decisions," said Sejen. "Companies now have an uphill battle not only
to enable better employee self-management of benefits, but also to cope with a
potential log jam of aging workers — all while addressing the contrasting needs
of younger employees trying to rise through the organization."
The log jam of workers wanting steady,
long-term employment is more vividly expressed in the answers to questions
about how many companies workers would like to have over their careers. A whopping
39 percent said they would prefer to only work for one company while another 40
percent said two or three companies maximum. Workers may be craving stability, but is such a
notion possible anymore?
A
former banker-turned-anthropology professor at the University of
Minnesota, Dr. Karen Ho thinks the successful American worker is now
expected to be in a constant state of flux and exert rapid
adaptability--something she has followed closely in studies on Wall
Street
company behavior and worker adaptation. On Wall Street's influence, Ho
told Time magazine in a 2009 interview:
"[T]here's constant job insecurity, constant
downsizing, constant restructuring, a constant need to retrain to have an
adaptable skill set and be flexible. In a sense, job security and stability
have been liquidated... What a lot of folks don't realize is there are tons of
layoffs on Wall Street even during a boom. What they value is not worker
stability but constant market simultaneity... People were working a hundred
hours a week, but constantly talking about job insecurity. Wall Street bankers
understand that they are liquid people. It's part of their culture."
So that may be what Wall Street workers know and
expect, but how does that translate for the rest of us? Ho answered, in the
same Time article:
"The kind of worker they imagine is a worker
like themselves. A worker who is constantly retraining, a worker who is
constantly networked, a worker whose skill set is very interchangeable, a
worker who thinks of downsizing as a challenge — a worker who thrives on this.
This becomes the prototype, but in many ways that's quite removed from the
daily lives of most American workers... Job insecurity isn't the same thing for
the average American worker."
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