Top 5 employer concerns of 2010
February 9, 2010 by Christian SchappelPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter - benefits, Incentives, Latest News & Views, Management, Money, Pay and benefits
What are your peers’ top five concerns heading into the rest of 2010? A recent study reveals what HR and benefits pros are thinking and doing.
By now, it’s no secret that the recession has killed employee job satisfaction and productivity. The No. 1 reason: Payroll budgets have dropped off a cliff.
But employers are determined to find ways to keep talented employees happy and working hard, without increasing payroll, found a recent CareerBuilder survey.
What did the survey of more than 2,700 employers uncover?
Pay worries
Employers’ top five concerns are:
- Providing competitive compensation (34%)
- Maintaining productivity levels (33%)
- Retaining top talent (31%)
- Worker burnout (30%), and
- Providing employees with opportunities to move up in the organization (25%).
Becoming more flexible
Despite their concerns, many employers feel as though they have the power to keep employees happy and productive without breaking the bank.
Here’s how they plan to do it:
- Offer more flexible work arrangements (28%)
- Provide more training (21%)
- Promise future benefits, like raises or promotions, when the economy picks back up (18%)
- Offer more performance-based incentives, like company-paid vacations (16%), and
- Provide a higher title without a salary increase (7%).
Tags: benefits, CareerBuilder survey, economy, HR, Incentives, Payroll budgets, recession
February 9th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Glad to see that 21% are committed to training. Training seemed to have went away in 2009 and so did morale. Companies forgot that training doesn’t have to mean big events, high priced consultants and day long sessions which some believe hurt productivity. Almost every team member has something they can teach the other team members. So if you don’t have the money for high priced stuff see who on your team can teach you a thing or two. And if you have the money for the high priced stuff make sure you include some team-taught training as well.
In the end everyone wins.
February 16th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
That’s right, Rich. Sometimes cross training is a big win…gets employees exposure to a new area in the company while making them feel like there’s still a career pathing opportunity in this economy, while being pretty cost effective as well. There’s a lot of cheap/free things that I’ve done as well that helps morale: casual Fridays, recycling programs, lunch with the CEO, etc. It’s not going to fix everything, but I find little cheap morale boosters make small differences to keep people going.