Indians Happy at Workplace, But on Lookout
Varuni Khosla
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New Delhi:
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ATTRITION AHEAD? A Dale Carnegie study shows 71% workforce is eyeing new positions despite high job satisfaction levels of 88%
Early this month, a multinational firm based in Delhi took on the mammoth task of relooking at why its staffers wanted a promotion every 18 months. For this company , and a few others, it has become a type of “syndrome“ they have to deal with.If the employees don't get promotions, they move on to other avenues.This could be attributed to the fact that in its first 25 years, the company grew so fast, it was promoting employees at this rate. Today , growth is slowing down and the company is unable to promise as many promotions.
A study , which was shared exclusively with ET, by New York-based leadership training company Dale Carnegie has found that even though level of job satisfaction in India is extremely high at around 88%, as against the global average of around 56%, about 31% of employees in the country are looking for a job right now and nearly 40% will look for one in the next one year. This means nearly 71% of the workforce is either thinking about or actively looking for new positions.
A part of this has to do with the age of the workforce -that is fast-moving, dynamic and ambitious. This phenomenon is very different from elsewhere in the world, said those behind the `Global Leadership Study 2016.' “It would make you think that it is fantastic that Indians are happy in their jobs,“ said Michelle Bonterre, chief brand strategy officer for Dale Carnegie Training. “But this could be because there are so many fresh highly educated graduates being added to the talent pool every year as compa red to other parts of the world. For employers, that is a huge challenge and they have to come up with how to hold on to employees even though they are happy.“
The study found that behaviours of immediate supervisors across the world had a significant impact on job satisfaction and retention. It showed that an individual's reason to stay with a company depends on an internally and externally reliable leader. Consultants said both India and China are going through transition, unlike the rest of the world, where employers must get transparent with employees.
“In this part of the world, employees aren't just looking for work satisfaction,“ said Jappreet Sethi, co-founder of YoStartups.com. “Sculpting their career growth and money is more important and I think there's nothing wrong with this approach. All these years, employers played patriarchs but when it came to sacking them, they didn't think twice.“
The leader who follows principles or someone who walks the talk is internally reliable. An externally reliable leader is someone who can be honest open and trustworthy . It added that when employees had leaders that were both externally and internally reliable, the percentage of those looking for jobs dropped dramatically by half.
“India is this way also as a result of function of the number of job opportunities. Data here is very different form the US, Germany or the UK. The war for talent is long over and talent has won,“ Bonterre said.
Globally , the study found that about 17% of respondents were very satisfied in their jobs. When supervisors fre quently exhibited the most important developmental, interpersonal leadership behaviours, the number of employees reporting being highly satisfied increases by about two-thirds.
In Asia, employees of supervisors who consistently demonstrated the top five effective behaviours were nearly twice as likely to say they are “very satisfied“ than Asian employees in general (21% versus 11%).
In Brazil and Mexico, the absolute difference was greatest at 14 percentage points, with 43% versus 29% saying they are “very satisfied“, a relative increase of 48%.
In Europe, it was 23% versus 16% and in the US and Canada, 34% vs 24%. In both these regions, the relative impact was about a 40% increase.
Sethi said employees want to know where their career is heading since time is finite.
“In the West, it is a trend that people will not work in that one job that they had five years ago. A third of the US, for instance, is shifting to consulting and temporary assignments. The best talent will not be hindered with a full-time job. Employers must relook at the way assignments are given. Tie up compensations with success metrics etc,“ he added.
A study , which was shared exclusively with ET, by New York-based leadership training company Dale Carnegie has found that even though level of job satisfaction in India is extremely high at around 88%, as against the global average of around 56%, about 31% of employees in the country are looking for a job right now and nearly 40% will look for one in the next one year. This means nearly 71% of the workforce is either thinking about or actively looking for new positions.
A part of this has to do with the age of the workforce -that is fast-moving, dynamic and ambitious. This phenomenon is very different from elsewhere in the world, said those behind the `Global Leadership Study 2016.' “It would make you think that it is fantastic that Indians are happy in their jobs,“ said Michelle Bonterre, chief brand strategy officer for Dale Carnegie Training. “But this could be because there are so many fresh highly educated graduates being added to the talent pool every year as compa red to other parts of the world. For employers, that is a huge challenge and they have to come up with how to hold on to employees even though they are happy.“
The study found that behaviours of immediate supervisors across the world had a significant impact on job satisfaction and retention. It showed that an individual's reason to stay with a company depends on an internally and externally reliable leader. Consultants said both India and China are going through transition, unlike the rest of the world, where employers must get transparent with employees.
“In this part of the world, employees aren't just looking for work satisfaction,“ said Jappreet Sethi, co-founder of YoStartups.com. “Sculpting their career growth and money is more important and I think there's nothing wrong with this approach. All these years, employers played patriarchs but when it came to sacking them, they didn't think twice.“
The leader who follows principles or someone who walks the talk is internally reliable. An externally reliable leader is someone who can be honest open and trustworthy . It added that when employees had leaders that were both externally and internally reliable, the percentage of those looking for jobs dropped dramatically by half.
“India is this way also as a result of function of the number of job opportunities. Data here is very different form the US, Germany or the UK. The war for talent is long over and talent has won,“ Bonterre said.
Globally , the study found that about 17% of respondents were very satisfied in their jobs. When supervisors fre quently exhibited the most important developmental, interpersonal leadership behaviours, the number of employees reporting being highly satisfied increases by about two-thirds.
In Asia, employees of supervisors who consistently demonstrated the top five effective behaviours were nearly twice as likely to say they are “very satisfied“ than Asian employees in general (21% versus 11%).
In Brazil and Mexico, the absolute difference was greatest at 14 percentage points, with 43% versus 29% saying they are “very satisfied“, a relative increase of 48%.
In Europe, it was 23% versus 16% and in the US and Canada, 34% vs 24%. In both these regions, the relative impact was about a 40% increase.
Sethi said employees want to know where their career is heading since time is finite.
“In the West, it is a trend that people will not work in that one job that they had five years ago. A third of the US, for instance, is shifting to consulting and temporary assignments. The best talent will not be hindered with a full-time job. Employers must relook at the way assignments are given. Tie up compensations with success metrics etc,“ he added.
Source: Economic Times, 26-07-2016
