PwC surveyed employee priorities regarding the future of work — more than a quarter (28%) of employees and executives strongly agree they are making permanent changes to how and where work gets done based on lessons learned from the pandemic. Almost 20% of all employees surveyed said they want to remain fully remote beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority prefer a hybrid model with a variation of in-office and remote days, the survey found.
And, 65% of employees are currently looking for a new job, up from 36% in May. Top reasons – – more flexible schedules, expanded benefits, and higher compensation. This list doesn’t line up with what companies are offering – things like company values, culture, and location flexibility.
The survey also found 2/3 of both execs and employees favor vaccine mandates. And another tidbit — nearly half of executives said they want to reduce their dependence on employees’ institutional knowledge. 88% of executives were seeing comparatively high turnover, adding that “the competitive war for talent has never been more fierce.”
That remote work benefit IS real – Hubble HQ’s survey has 79% of respondents saying the best thing about remote work was the lack of a commute.
Meanwhile, Apple has also now announced a delay in the return to the office, until January 2022 at the earliest, citing the delta variant. The company has committed to a one month notice before requiring employees to return to the office.
The competitive war over talent – and let’s highlight that for IT services providers, this is the largest expense line item by far. In the current market, in my “if I owned an MSP perspective”, there’s two takeaways for me.
First, I’d be really looking at my competitive offering to staff. Do I pay enough? Are my benefits in line with what employees want, particularly around schedule flexibility and around benefits?
Second, this is where IT companies can offer assistance to the business side of their customers. How can the technology stack be used to address this need? The consulting alone around this need is pretty expansive.
There’s opportunity here – and take advantage of being agile where you can.