The pandemic, the economy, and a new generation of employees are all contributing to a shift in what workers want from the companies that hire them. No longer content with sterile environments with no thought given to comfort, security, or health, these workers are using the historically low unemployment rate as a bargaining chip to gain flexible schedules, mental health benefits, pay transparency, and much more.
And how are employers responding? The smart ones are giving them what they want. Because talented workers are in high demand, if a company isn’t meeting their needs, they can find one that does. Businesses that want to keep that talent are improving the employee experience to include more flexibility, better benefits, and added opportunities.
In the following sections, we cover many of the items on workers’ checklists in 2024. Employers who want to be proactive should put as many of them in place as soon as possible.
Focus on Well-being
Rather than being seen as an afterthought, employee well-being should be baked into company practices and programs. This strategy helps team members and the company as a whole because less-stressed workers are better equipped to put in the work that makes the business run smoothly.
This desire isn’t just a passing fad. According to a recent Surgeon General report, most workers (81%) say they will be looking for workplaces that support mental health. Some companies are taking the matter so seriously that they are adding Chief Wellness Officers to the executive team. Specifically, workers are interested in the following types of support.
Mental Health Services
An upsurge in stress, anxiety, and depression, along with more openness about these matters, has resulted in an increased demand for mental health services. According to the American Psychological Association, 81% of workers agree that how employers support mental health will be an important consideration when looking for future work.
This support could be in the form of mental health coverage being included with insurance, free therapy sessions, or other arrangements. The key to remember is there is no one perfect solution for every company or every employee, so a combination of offerings may be the best approach. Employers must also reduce actions that contribute to employee stress, including the following:
- Disallowing flexible work arrangements
- Paying less than a living wage
- Using workplace monitoring
- Allowing a non-diverse workplace
- Allowing harassment, verbal abuse, or physical violence in the workplace
- Allowing discrimination
Healthy Food
Regarding food choices, workers need more than a break room vending machine full of junk food. They are looking for healthier and more affordable options in snacks and cafeteria offerings. Employers can work toward providing those options and others around food. For example, a Cornell University study found that employers encouraging workers to eat meals together are likely to see benefits such as stronger employee relationships, increased engagement, and a boost in productivity.
Financial Education
Financial wellness services are one of the biggest perks workers are looking for beyond the standard. According to a recent study, those whose benefit packages include such services are more likely (51%) to be satisfied with their package overall. Financial education can take the form of classes, online resources, or referrals to counselors.
Financially secure employees are stable employees, so this kind of outreach benefits companies as well. Financial services provider Ramsey states, “Employees don’t leave their money stress at home. It follows them into work and steals from your company’s bottom line in the form of turnover, lost productivity, absenteeism and delayed retirements,” all factors that can cost businesses thousands, if not millions, of dollars per year.
Recognition of Skills Over Degrees
College is expensive, and many people can’t afford it, but highly skilled individuals still want to be considered for good jobs. That’s why workers are demanding to be evaluated on their skills, not their degrees. And employers are complying. According to research conducted by Remote, skills-based hiring is up 63% in the past year. Companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Mastercard, and Bank of America are getting on board with this practice.
The practice reflects shifting ideas about education. According to an article appearing on news site Discourse, “Less than half of Generation Z high schoolers want a four-year college degree… Nearly one-third want several educational experiences, each of one year or less… To integrate these young people into the workforce, employers should stop viewing four-year college degrees as the norm.”
This area is yet another one in which meeting workers’ needs also helps hiring companies. A recent Forbes article stated, “For employers, skills-based hiring broadens the talent pool, increases the speed to hire, and adds greater diversity of thought in the workforce.” IT professions such as computer support and software engineering stand out as being particularly adaptive to skills-based hiring.
Flexibility
The pandemic changed a lot of things, including how work works. Remote and hybrid arrangements have become the norm, and today’s workers want to keep it that way. Additionally, employees want to be able to set their own schedules. For example, parents may want to start and end their day a couple of hours early to be available to pick up their kids from school. Some may want to work longer hours for fewer days per week. For these team members, the “when” issue is more important than the “where” (onsite, remote, or hybrid) debate.
Still, hybrid work is emerging as a solution that offers the best of onsite and remote options. It supports the comfort and convenience of working from home and the ability to come together with others for meetings, brainstorming, and customer calls.
The Forbes article emphasizes the importance of defining what hybrid looks like for each company. It states, “It’s a lot more complicated than the number of days one works remote or in the office” and suggests that workers and team leaders establish guidelines to define workspaces, identify technology needed, create team norms, determine “collaboration hours,” and recognize “rituals for success.”
When employees are in the office, they need different functionality from what has been offered in the past. As with all worker-related initiatives in today’s business environment, it must focus on the employee experience and reflect how people truly work. For example, conference rooms designed to seat a dozen people around a table might be transformed into informal meeting spaces for smaller impromptu conversations, or a training area.
Employers must enable such choices without sacrificing productivity. Often, the key is finding useful technology solutions that enable team members to communicate asynchronously (at different times) and without regard to location. (The video below explains more about asynchronous working.) The number of days in the office or remote should be a result of this conversation, rather than the starting point for it.
Transparency
Prospective employees want to work for companies that look beyond the bottom line and demonstrate the values they espouse. New regulatory requirements and pressure from stakeholders are helping to push businesses in this direction as well. As a result, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting has increased, and many companies are publishing sustainability reports.
The “S” in ESG includes issues like diversity, which many of today’s workers expect. This preference is especially pronounced in Gen Z, which is itself more diverse than any previous generation, including by race, upbringing (more of them are from single-parent households), gender identity, and sexuality. They want to feel not just tolerated, or even accepted, but welcomed.
Workers are also demanding pay transparency, which is access to information about salaries within the company they work for or are applying to work for. According to CNBC, 98% of employees said employers should disclose salary ranges in job postings. And according to Glassdoor, 63% of employees said they want their employer to be transparent about pay information, but only 19% said their company does so. Meanwhile, 28% stated their company discourages discussing salary with coworkers.
This issue is particularly important for women who are, according to many sources, paid 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. According to a recent BairesDev post on the topic of pay transparency, “The pay gap increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as many women were forced to drop out of the workforce or switch to lower-paying part-time work to care for children at home.” One possible way to improve the situation “is to institute pay transparency on a more widespread basis.”
Human Skills
What used to be called soft skills are now referred to as “human skills,” and workers want them to be noticed. Fortunately, they are also in high demand by employers. According to a Pearson’s Skills Outlook report, the top five skills desired by employers today are communication, customer service, leadership, attention to detail, and collaboration. These are precisely the skills that machines—which are taking over an increasing number of jobs and tasks—cannot provide.
A Fast Company article provides a similar view, stating, “Developing human skills…is as essential today to a business’s success as hitting your KPIs or revenue goals.” This article emphasizes the very human need to maintain calm in a world that is chaotic and ever changing. This skill enables leaders and others to support one another, creating an overall environment of safety, rather than fear. Such an environment is much more conducive to productivity, communication, and working collaboratively toward common goals.
Work-life Integration
The pandemic forced employees to rethink the way they balance work and personal time. Many reached the conclusion that the two can’t always be separated, as in the case where parents were working from home in the same room where their children were engaged in online schooling.
Rather than searching for ways to make that separation more pronounced, many people determined that the merging of work and personal lives was a good thing, and they wanted to keep it that way. That was one reason behind the Great Resignation, a time when tens of millions of Americans resigned from positions that didn’t offer enough flexibility to create this reality.
Workers are still looking for ways to integrate their work and personal lives, and they want their employers to collaborate with them, not resist this effort. The key notion here is that team members want more than just a balance. They want a seamless blending that enables them to pursue both professional and personal goals. Here are a few suggestions to help them achieve it, based on a recent article from job search firm Built In:
- Offer generous paid time off.
- Provide paid leaves.
- Consider offering recharge days.
- Be flexible with schedules.
- Get to know employees’ personal situations.
- Help employees meet personal goals.
- Encourage people to ask for help.
- Set asynchronous communication standards.
- Don’t glorify overworking.
- Ask employees what they want.
- Lead by example.
Responsiveness
Due partly to the pandemic, workers have gained confidence in asking for their needs to be met and are providing feedback to their employers about what they can do to keep them. And they expect real-time responses. Some organizations have adopted technology solutions to address direct requests, detect needs within communications, and communicate with employees about their challenges. Such actions show that employers are willing to work together with employees and to make changes.
Note that the key to success in this area isn’t necessarily taking every suggestion that employees make. Rather, it’s letting them know you are truly listening. Create a listening program to ensure that’s the case. It should include elements like a formal process for submitting suggestions, and a way to acknowledge that those suggestions have been received and are being considered. The more workers see you are actively implementing their suggestions, or at least actively considering them, the more heard they will feel.
Opportunity
Workers want to be able to take on new challenges, excel in their positions, and advance in their careers. Many who don’t find these opportunities with their current employer are likely to look for other options. Members of Gen Z, the youngest cohort currently in the workforce, are especially prone to job-hopping when they are dissatisfied with their current position. Employers can respond to this need in several ways.
- Frequent check-ins. Employers should replace the familiar interview question “Where do you see yourself in five years?” with “Where do you see yourself in five months?”. Supervisors should have frequent meetings with team members to identify goals and check progress. For example, a team member may want to train for leadership themselves, and the company can respond by letting them know the steps involved and set them up for success in achieving them through things like mentoring and training.
- Continuous learning. Continuous learning is helpful for all employees but especially so for members of Gen Z, who tend to get bored easily. That doesn’t mean you have to put on classes, webinars, and workshops every week, though you should provide them as often as you can. Rather, find teachable moments within the regular workday, create a mentorship program if you don’t already have one, and offer lunchtime tutorials on specific skills that can be taught in a brief period.
- Upskilling and reskilling. Training should include upskilling and reskilling, which are the practices of training existing staff to perform higher-level tasks, or to work in different positions entirely. They can increase employee retention, engagement, and satisfaction. They can also save your company money, because training existing employees is more cost-effective than hiring new ones.For best results, ask employees what kind of training they want, accommodate all types of learning, personalize the process, and assess employees’ skills regularly. Be sure to promote opportunities widely so everyone who wants to participate can.
Worker Demands Are Employer Opportunities
The term “demand” has a negative connotation, as though something bad will happen if the demand isn’t met. In some cases that might be true. You might lose employees or be faced with a disgruntled workforce. The truth is, the outcomes can be even worse. Dissatisfied workers might pass their malaise on to customers, resulting in lower revenues. Customers might find out you have less-than-supportive practices and defect on their own.
But all of these possibilities represent opportunities to turn things in the other direction instead. While it may not be practical to institute every demand team members make, you should carefully consider all of them, especially if they are supported by a large portion of your workforce. Meeting worker demands can lead to an enhanced employee experience, which may attract more customers and generate additional revenue. Further, consumers and businesses who care about how companies treat their employees will seek you out.
Keeping talent additionally preserves the often-underappreciated asset of institutional knowledge. It also saves you money, given that keeping your current workers is much more cost-effective than hiring new ones. So, rather than viewing your employees’ and prospective employees’ demands as negative, think of them as an opportunity to give a little and get a lot more.
