According to the findings of a survey conducted by The Adecco Group, salary, workplace atmosphere and career growth are the three most important criteria that workers are taking into account while looking for job opportunities. According to the official communique, the survey aims at comparing what workers want and what employers think that workers want.

Salary and workplace atmosphere

The communique reads that at first glance employers and workers seem to be aligned on the main criteria that motivate people to apply for a job. Both the sides agree that salary is the topmost consideration followed by workplace atmosphere and career development. 

Commenting on the angle of salary,  Christophe Catoir, President of Adecco wrote in the communique, “GenZ and GenY workers are more likely to be swayed by salary, while older generations focus more on the content of the job and work atmosphere. Only workers in Latin America and Spain tend to prefer collaborative to individual work, though companies think this preference applies more widely.”

However, against 53% of the employees considering salary as the most important factor, 72% of employers look at it as the first priority. In fact, the perception of the employers and employees differ to a great extent in terms of the brand image of the employer. While according to the employers brand image and size is kept at the seventh position by the employees, the latter has kept it in the sixteenth position in terms of priority. 

Findings further revealed that the work atmosphere was cited by 36% of workers as deciding factor for job selection, while career development was cited by 25% of the respondents. 

Wellbeing and flexibility 

Conversely, employers underestimate the extent to which Covid has made workers more attuned to questions of health, safety and wellbeing at work. Interesting job content and the flexibility to work from home – or even from another country – are among the factors more important to workers than companies have realised. This is especially the case in the UK, Germany and the US, where 22% of workers said they valued the option to work full-time at home, compared to a global average of 9%. Women are more likely than men to rank flexibility as a major factor.

Recruitment process

One final difference of thoughts between the employer and employees is around the recruitment process. While the recruitment processes are getting digital, candidates are moving faster than the companies. The survey has revealed that 35% of workers (49% of Gen Z) said they would be happy with an online recruitment process, whereas employers believed this would be true for only 9%.

Commenting on this, Christophe noted, “We increasingly hear workers, especially in the younger generation, say that they are happy to be recruited via digital processes.”

With the increasing talent retention issues, employers quickly need to pick up on the differences of perceptions in order to step into the shoes of the employees and look at the scenario. Possibly that is one way to the problem-solving in the case of talent retention.