Career Agilityand Engagement

Understanding career aspirations, agility and drivers of the current workforce across key demographics

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502. Engagement & Workforce AgilityWhat drives engagement and workforce agility

704. Leadership and DiversityLeadership aspiration and the diversity agenda

805. Mobility TrendsHow do we build a career agility mindset?

906. Flexible Work PatternsWhat flexible work practices do employees want?

1309. Career GrowthWhat kind of career development activities do people want?

1208. The Creative 15%

1410. Careers & generational differences

1511. Retention & Career Development

1612. Key findings & recommendations

401. Introduction

603. Career Acceleration

1007. Career Breaks

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01. IntroductionThe Career Agility & Engagement Report 2014 research reflects the online responses of over 1,000 individuals from all over the globe. Our purpose was to understand the career aspirations, agility and drivers of the current workforce across key demographics such as gender, age and career stage to assist our clients in their workforce planning particularly with talent management, diversity programmes and employee attraction and retention.

In this report we share a brief overview of employee engagement to contextualize career engagement, key drivers of career engagement, differences in career engagement and agility trends across age groups and gender and the implications for organizations in how they address diversity issues, cope with an aging workforce, build succession plans and influence engagement in their organizations.

We conclude with a brief overview of the most significant findings that are of organizational interest and present the concept of career engagement and how this relates to the broader concept of employee engagement. We also explore the implications for the roles and responsibilities for career management within organizations.

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Career development is commonly cited as a key driver of engagement as exemplified by Aon Hewitt’s model (2013) shown below. Organizations who provide clear career pathways, the necessary development, and who provide career management enablers, have been shown to benefit from increased engagement, productivity and even revenue per employee (Career Engagement Benchmarking Research*).

By including tools to support empowering career dialogues between managers and their employees, organizations who practise best

in class career engagement are well along the path of achieving the desired outcomes of engagement, agility and retention of key talent.

The focus needs to be inclusive — employees, their managers and leaders, and the executive stakeholders. These are incremental; everyone is responsible for their own career management, anyone with direct reports must both role model effective career management and support the career development of their team members; and executives set the tone for a career-engaged and agile organization.

02. Engagement & Workforce AgilityW H A T D R I V E S E N G A G E M E N T A N D W O R K F O R C E A G I L I T Y

Engagement

Aon Hewitt (2013)

Manager understands what motivates me

Involved in decisions that may affect my work

Clear career path

Necessary development

Career development

Teamwork

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A significant number of our respondents wanted to add more value, contribute more, and take on more responsibility.

This discretionary effort is what lifts both individual and organizational performance. Identifying exactly what kinds of learning, stretch assignments and additional contributions each individual can make to your organization is as good as “money in the bank”. The reward will be in motivated staff who are focused on adding more value and contributing more.

A significant number of our respondents wanted to add more value, contribute more, and take on more responsibilities.

There are opportunities for organizations to build a culture of “self-directed” development. A large number of respondents showed a high level of interest in growing their career and even being prepared to use their own time to support this.

Providing tools and resources to support this “self-directed” learning can provide pay-offs to your organization as this study showed that those that were satisfied with their career development opportunities were significantly more likely to be retained over the next 5 years.

03. Career Acceleration

31%

14%

10%

35%

75%

O U R F I N D I N G S

want to accelerate or fast-track their careers or dial-up

want to decelerate or dial-down their career

want less responsibility at work

want more work responsibilities and believe they can contribute more

of all respondents would use their own time to further their career and take on additional learning that would benefit them at work

A large number of respondents showed a high level of interest in growing their career and even being prepared to use their own time to support this.

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There is a shortage of females with aspirations for senior leadership positions compared to men. However, men and women did not differ significantly on most factors, including motivation, satisfaction with career development, intent to remain in their current job, desire to take on additional responsibilities, desire to learn more and desire to fast-track career growth. Men and women also reported a similar number of commitments outside of work.

It was staggering to see the difference in leadership aspirations between men and women.

The challenge for those supporting a diversity agenda is finding those females with leadership aspirations early and ensuring they get the right career acceleration experiences to ensure their readiness and retention within the organization to contribute to leadership within the business over the longer term.

31% 15%

14% 9%

10%

35% 11%

75%

O U R F I N D I N G S

of men aspire to senior leadership positions

of women aspire to senior leadership positions

of all respondents want to lead at the most senior level in an organization

04. Leadership and DiversityL E A D E R S H I P A S P I R A T I O N A N D T H E D I V E R S I T Y A G E N D A

Younger people have higher leadership aspirations overall, so you may find more Gen Y females are leadership aspirant.

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05. Mobility TrendsH O W D O W E B U I L D A C A R E E R A G I L I T Y M I N D S E T ?

4%

25%

50+

53%

of respondents were open to moving anywhere

of respondents were relatively open to a location change

Unsurprisingly, older people are less open to moving to a different location

of respondents were quite (or highly) committed to their current location

O N L Y . . .

It is concerning that only a small percentage of the workforce sampled were what could be deemed “career-mobile”.

The challenge for organizations today is how to build a career agility mind-set where people are open to moving location in the interests of growing or fast-tracking their career. It may be beneficial to identify these individuals early and treat them like gold-dust, as these same individuals may be the first to leave if their careers are not accelerated.

Open to location change

0 5 10 15 2025

Gen Y

Gen X

Baby boomers

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06. Flexible Work PatternsW H A T F L E X I B L E W O R K P R A C T I C E S D O E M P L O Y E E S W A N T ?

Offering flexible work practices can significantly pay off for employers.

The Career Trends Report showed that a large proportion of people were seeking more flexible hours and a shorter week.Working Mom’s Research survey of 50,000 US employees reported by the Corporate Executive Board found that:

People who are happy with their work-life benefits are also likely to work 21% harder and are 33% more likely to stay at that organization.

70%

36%

25%

O U R F I N D I N G S

of all respondents would choose to work either a 4 day week (35%) or a 9 day fortnight (24%) and would sacrifice salary to do so

wanted to work 4 days per week

were interested in part time work (more women than men)

In the 2014 Career Trends Survey, when asked about what they wanted in the way of flexible work practices, here is what we found:

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07. Career BreaksWe asked respondents whether they wanted to take a career break. Here is what we found:

Overall, younger people were more likely to want to take a career break in our survey, so we are likely to see an increase in the number of people taking career breaks in the future (nearly 40% of the Gen X respondents were planning to take a career break in the future).

T A K I N G C A R E E R B R E A K S

74%

50%

16%

11%

of respondents were not interested in a career break

of all respondents have taken a break at some time in their career

wanted to take a sabbatical

wanted parental leave at some time in the future

O U R F I N D I N G S

58%36% 25%29%

Have you ever taken a

career break?

Would you like to take a career break

in the future?

YES

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H O W W O U L D Y O U U S E Y O U R C A R E E R B R E A K ?

40% would use their career break for childcare purposes

Childcare

Other

Overseas travel

Health reasons

Study

Redundancy

Family reasons

40% 1

7% 23%

6%

6%

6%

2%

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08. The Creative 15%Of the 17% of people who were taking career breaks for other reasons, the majority were taking a conscious career break to change careers, or to try something new.

Some lucky individuals who have taken career breaks in the past described some of the following reasons for taking a break:

While a good number of people were using career breaks to rethink their options, there were a number who used the time to build a house or renovate a home.

While career breaks may be increasing for males, only 18% of all respondents (male and female) were wanting to take a career break in the foreseeable future. This suggests that if organizations were to offer a career break opportunity to their staff, less than 18% would take it up in any given year.

A few other respondents took a career break but found out it wasn’t necessarily all they expected:

Because I could

To try something new

Look for a change of focus

To try my own business

Just wanted time out

To explore artistic pursuits

Change of lifestyle

Wanted to reflect on what I really wanted next

The grass looked greener, but turned out it wasn’t...

Just because I was turning 30

I tried early retirement, I didn’t like it...

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09. Career GrowthW H A T K I N D O F C A R E E R D E V E L O P M E N T

A C T I V I T I E S D O P E O P L E W A N T ?

20%

44%

46%

21%

26%

60%

of respondents were interested in external secondments

of all respondents were interested in mentoring

of all respondents were keen for online learning opportunities — this can be a really cost-effective career development solution for organizations which is a growing trend of appeal to employees

of respondents were interested in sabbaticals

wanted an opportunity for study leave

of all respondents were keen to attend externally run workshops and training

O U R F I N D I N G S

The 2014 Career Trends survey suggests that by understanding the career wants and needs of individuals it is possible to customize a career proposition that might include project work, stretch assignments, mentors or short secondments – all of which can fast-track career growth, impact retention and improve the individual motivation and productivity.

A high proportion of respondents were prepared to use their own time for career development activities.

Career development solutions don’t need to be expensive to be effective.

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10. Careers & Generational DifferencesSignificant differences were found in career aspirations across the generations. Understanding the career aspirations of each generation will help to create a compelling career proposition for your talent across the generations.

Younger people want a faster pace at work while older people are more likely to wish to reduce the pace they work at

Younger people want more career growth and to be fast tracked. Many aged 61+ want to decelerate their hours

Younger people were keen to take on more learning opportunities even if this meant in their own time

Younger people wanted to take on more responsibility at work

However, older workers were significantly more likely to be retained

Increased pace of work

Senior leadership aspiration

More learning opportunities (even in own time)

0 20 40 60 80 100

Increased career acceleration

More work responsibility

120

Gen Y Gen X Baby Boomers

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11. Retention and Career DevelopmentIt is highly concerning that 60% of all respondents were planning to leave their current employers within the next five years. There are implications for succession management, workforce planning unless retention plans for key talent are created. Career development, in this study and others, has been shown to directly impact retention.

17%

50%

?

60%

hope to leave their current organization in the coming year

plan to leave in the next three years

who will you be left with?

planning to leave within the next five years

O U R F I N D I N G S

Less than 20% are very satisfied with their career development opportunities, however... those who were very satisfied with their career development opportunities were more likely to plan to remain with their current employer.

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12. Key findings & recommendationsThe Career Engagement and Agility Trends Survey has highlighted a number of significant findings which could be of interest to those responsible for talent development, workforce planning and HR policies.

▻ The more you give them the more they want. Those with the most number of jobs in the last five years wanted more work responsibility, more career growth and a faster pace of work and more learning but were less likely to be retained in the next five years.

▻ Identify those with drive. They are more motivated, have higher leadership aspiration and are more likely to stay.

▻ Those who are more satisfied with the career development opportunities in the current role are expected to remain longer.

▻ Don’t be afraid to offer career breaks: less than 20% of people were interested in taking career breaks or a flexible work pattern, and those who wish to stay in the organization are far less likely to want to take a career break.

▻ Don’t be afraid to offer flexible work patterns, most people have modest aspirations with what would really make a difference to their work/life balance, with the majority of respondents preferring a 4 day week or 9 day fortnight.

▻ More men than women were interested in taking career breaks.

▻ Those with school aged children were more motivated and also still open to opportunities and working in different locations.

▻ More men were interested in secondments.

▻ More women were interested in part-time work hours and flexible work patterns.

▻ Women had significantly lower leadership aspiration than men.

▻ Tap into emerging talent pools — Those under 30 were the most likely to want more work responsibilities, with those over 45 least likely to.

Agility Trends

Generational differences

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