“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” A Talent Driven Job Landscape
Part 1 Show me the Money
I know what you’re thinking: (no, not, “But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need”) rather, “actually it depends on who has the upper hand” a.k.a. Micro Economics 101 or the supply and demand of goods and services in market economies.
Sure the Stones’ version rolls better off the tongue but it doesn’t give the same impact or confidence to something we have in Australia which we don’t give enough credit to: A Talented workforce.
“Show me the money”
A recent staffing trends report on LinkedIn showed something very different and very interesting this year. After years of white papers showing that culture, career progression and strong leaders are the key motivators for staff it would appear that compensation is at the top of the list 44% of those who were surveyed across Australia and New Zealand. With 37% choosing work life balance and 26% saying culture.
Of course the truth is all of these are important (and some) in attracting and retaining the talented workforce, your best performers, the people who will advance your business; or someone else’s’ if you neglect them.
You now know that when interviewing a perspective employee on the awkward subject of remuneration that when they say “salary is not the most important factor” there is a 44% chance they are lying.
Deloitte Access Economics Business Outlook in December 2014 talked about used the term “Squeeze on incomes” (to avoid the term income recession). This is important and no coincidence that the first time we see Compensation being mentioned as the most important motivator is straight after we have seen a rise in unemployment and pressure on salaries.
Perhaps, it’s always been the most important but there wasn’t enough pressure on salaries for us to be fully open about it?
What’s obvious is that it’s getting harder to attract the best talent and even harder to keep them. There is good news, however, for people wanting a disengaged and unproductive workforce. This is fairly easy to achieve in a downturn.
The below graph indicates that as salaries go up from 2015 that this demand of higher compensation will be addressed.