Employees under the age of 25 are the most engaged and positive of all employee groups, but many in a recent global report don’t envision working at their organisations long term.
“Despite popular critiques of young employees, especially around their commitment and energy … these bright individuals are keen to add value to their organisations — more so than any other age group — make an impact, and are incredibly optimistic about their, and their organisation’s, future,” a report from US company Qualtrics said.
More employees aged 18 to 24 believe in their organisation’s values (82% vs. 76% of those 25 and older), believe in their organisation’s future (80% vs. 70%), feel engaged (77% vs. 70%), feel their organisation makes a positive impact on the world (76% vs. 68%), and are confident their organisation can support their career goals (75% vs. 67%).
Despite their optimism, younger employees have the lowest intent to stay three or more years at their companies, the report found. Their top retention drivers are having career goals met, a benefits package that meets their needs, manager behaviour that’s consistent with the company’s values, a belief in the company’s values, and the space to have meaningful career development discussions with management.
“Younger employees are coming into the workplace with some unique, shared challenges — from the rising price of education to high cost of living to increasing demands for new skills — making it difficult for them to commit to one job or employer for a long period of time,” the report said. Being invested in their growth, development, and future careers is key to retaining younger talent, the report said.
Qualtrics surveyed 35,023 full-time and part-time employees from 22 countries in 2024.
Lack of support increases pressure
Over a third of employees globally (38%) are feeling pressure from their employer to increase productivity, the report said, and many feel they don’t receive the support needed to work through those challenges.
Employees who don’t feel increased productivity pressure have a stronger intent to stay than employees who do feel pressure (72% vs. 58%). They also feel more engaged (79% vs. 67%) and feel better about their wellbeing (82% vs. 69%) than workers facing constant pressure in their roles.
Change management requires people-centric leadership. Employers taking proactive steps to make work easier by empowering employees with the right tools are more likely to retain staff, the report said. Fundamentally, 72% of employees who use AI daily or weekly are more optimistic that AI could change work for the better compared with 30% who use AI tools monthly or less. They say that the use of AI tools would increase the quality of their work (47%), save them time on tasks (42%), allow them to engage in new tasks (38%), and increase the amount of work they can produce (27%).
Employees to leaders: No more surveys
While employees are more likely to stay at organisations that can meet their expectations, they don’t want to complete surveys every day to share their experiences.
In response, organisations are using the unsolicited data employees generate in their day-to-day schedules, such as declining a meeting, answering questions in public channels, and emailing a customer. Employees are more comfortable sharing information from emails, provided those insights are used to improve their experiences at work.
Employees, particularly younger workers, also want to feel more included in decision-making. “This is a group of employees who may see things from different perspectives and are enthusiastic about sharing their ideas … but may feel intimidated by more experienced employees who dictate how things are done,” the report said. “Putting parameters around these discussions can help to keep the ideas realistic, but encouraging new ideas can help to keep … enthusiasm high and ultimately lead to better long-term decisions.”
Bringing employees on board to help solve business issues is important because then they have the ownership that comes with it, Clare Haynes, an organisational psychology specialist and leadership coach, said in a previously published FM podcast episode.
“When you get people in a room and you say: ‘Right, OK, what are the problems? What do you think and what would solve them?’ In my experience, nine times out of ten, they give you the better answers that are simpler and more effective,” Haynes said.
— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.