Survey Highlights
The stand-out insight from our research shows a disparity between employers and employees when it comes to company brand. Only 15% of employees cited a strong company brand as important when looking for a new role, compared with nearly 30% of employers who feel that their brand is the most important element in attracting staff.
This may explain why some well-known employers are struggling to attract and retain talent. Are they perhaps leaning too heavily on their reputation within the sector, rather than highlighting their ethos, culture and benefits? This is particularly pertinent when it comes to attracting new hires to the market, as Generation Z ranked ‘employer brand’ the lowest, with only 2% saying it was most important when considering a role.
Candidates ranked work/life balance, benefits and job security as the three most important elements when considering a new role. More than a third also stated that they’d considered changing careers since the pandemic. These combined factors may result in an exodus from current roles to pursue opportunities that can provide an improved work/life balance; a blow to well-established corporates who have historically attracted the best talent through reputation.
When reviewing the age range of those who did rate employer brand as important, there’s a clear pattern. 61% of those who ranked employer brand as important were born between 1961 and 1982 (Generation X), and 37% were born between 1983 and 1995 (Generation Y).
Only 2% of those born after 1995 (Generation Z) and none of those born before 1960 (Baby Boomers) ranked employer brand as important. The low numbers of Generation Z employees ranking it as important could be down to a different perspective in comparison to older generations. A lot of Generation Z employees will have entered the workforce just before, during or just after the pandemic, where there was a clear focus on work / life balance and personal contentment, and less on one’s career being a defining factor of who they are.
Baby boomers, on the other hand, may have focused more on employer brand when building their career, but since they now have several years of experience, the company brand they work for may not hold as much importance.
In fact, the number of respondents from different age groups overall was telling. Only 2% classed themselves as ‘Baby Boomers’, a huge 58% said they were ‘Generation X’, 34% were ‘Generation Y’ and only 6% were ‘Generation Z’. This is an indicator of the current job market, with potentially rafts of talent retiring from the sector, a limited amount of talent and skills entering the market, and the lion’s share of the workload, being left to those born between 1961 and 1995.
This suggests an ever-widening skills gap, with a consistent number of employees retiring annually, but low numbers entering the industry. These newer hires are likely to have a steep learning curve when it comes to industry knowledge, but bring huge potential when it comes to digital skills.
