Employee Mood Barometer: Tips for Employers
2020 has been full of challenges and experiences that would suffice for a whole generation: lockdown, a sudden collapse of certain sectors coupled with rapid growth in others, and forced retraining. There has also been a revolutionary change in the manner of performing work: first a shift to home office (whenever possible), followed by a timid return to the offices.
It was in this situation on the labour market that we conducted our “Employee Mood Barometer” survey on a group of almost 1,000 people selected from among the clients and candidates of Gi Group, Grafton Recruitment, Wyser, and TACK TMI. We asked them about their sentiments connected with employment. The conclusions are, unfortunately, not very optimistic: employees have a middling opinion of all the fields under analysis, while employers fail to read the moods in their teams correctly.
We asked the respondents about the degree to which they were satisfied with their salaries and employment stability as well as about the level of their job satisfaction and trust in their superiors. We were interested whether the perspectives of employees and employers were similar. The result of any given category is always an average of all the replies provided according to a 10-degree scale.
As it turns out, employees have a middling opinion on all of the analysed aspects (between 6 and 7) and their superiors fail to read the team moods correctly.
Interestingly, as regards salaries, the sentiment barometer displayed a higher reading in the case of employees (6.6). Employers were less optimistic, with an average of 6.2.; they proved to be greater pessimists when providing an answer on how the employees in their organisation assessed their position on the labour market in terms of remunerations. In my opinion, their assessment also followed from a better knowledge of their organisation’s financial standing as well as the economic situation of the industry or even the country as a whole. The question concerning potential pay raises in the coming quarter serves as a case in point here. As many as 80% of employers who rated employment stability in their organisations at 5 or lower answered definitively there would be no raises. This reaction was most probably connected with the COVD-19 pandemic and their macroeconomic knowledge.
Where else have we noticed a discrepancy between employers and employees concerning salaries? When asked about the level of raise that employees would have to be granted to rate their situation as 6 or higher, the biggest group of employers (42%) replied it would have to amount to around 20%. What did employees have to say to that? The difference in this case was huge: a pay raise of 20% and 25% was indicated by two groups of 25% respondents (with an almost equal distribution) as a condition necessary for them to rate their position as 6 or higher.
The above difference can also be explained otherwise: perhaps the general opinion that “employers think their employees are always dissatisfied with their wages, no matter how much they are paid” is proving to be true? Let me leave it here as food for thought.
The next question was concerned with employment stability and, as it turns out, employees had a better opinion about it. The mood barometer equalled 7.1 in their case, compared to 7 in the group of employers. Does it mean that the employee market continues, as labour market experts have been claiming all along? This suggestion is supported by information received from our clients: most organisations refrained from layoffs and many have actually expanded their teams.
It is a good sign that employees have a sense of security concerning their jobs despite the current economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, when asked about the factors that make employees at their organisations consider their jobs stable, employers listed safety and regularity of salary payments as the main priority. Safety of the organisation ranked second, followed by the attractiveness of the product or service offered by the organisation. Meanwhile, employees listed the security of the organisation as the primary factor contributing to their sense of employment stability, followed by the safety and regularity of salary payments. These results may indicate that, in light of the pandemic, employees pay greater attention to the condition of the organisation. Contrary to numerous opinions, they are not focused exclusively on their salaries. It is clear that employees are ready to negotiate or modify the terms of their employment so that they can keep their jobs and weather the difficult times together with their organisation. This attitude should be appreciated and, after the organisation gets back on its feet, rewarded in some manner, e.g. if they had to give up a part of their salary or switch to a different employment mode.
The lowest results in the whole survey were reported in the section devoted to job satisfaction. In this case, the mood barometer of employees reached 6 and of employers only 5.9. It seems that employers are getting increasingly hard pressed to maintain a high level of commitment of their teams, especially when promotions and pay raises have been put on hold. Meanwhile, job satisfaction is a necessary condition of incentivising employees and, as a result, of success. In our survey, we also asked employees about their relationship with and confidence in the employer and about their assessment of the actions and attitude of their employer in crisis situations. At the same time, employers got to assess the degree to which the people within their organisation trust them and perceive their actions during a crisis.
The mood barometer concerning confidence in the employer equalled 6.6 among employees and employers alike. This consistent rating in a 10-degree scale is a rather low result. It seems that employers have a lot of work to do in terms of building their position within the organisation and gaining their employees’ trust, especially if we take specific grades into consideration: as many as 71.38% employers and only 65.44% employees rated the confidence of persons within the organisation in their employer at 6 or higher. What is more, employers assigned higher grades to the relationship with superiors in all categories: for example, a good relationship with the superior was selected by 22.55% employees and as many as 36.95% employers as a primary factor contributing to the employees’ job satisfaction!
A critical opinion of employers, their competences and attitudes was confirmed by yet another ratio, namely the assessment of the employer by employees in crisis situations (on average 6.7 among employees and 6.5% among employers).
To conclude, we are perfectly aware that the first edition of the “Employee Mood Barometer” was created in very special conditions and at a unique time that certainly influenced the answers of employers and employees alike. This is why we are planning to repeat it. The next, completely new edition of the Barometer will be released as soon as in January 2021 and I kindly invite you to leaf through it once it is published.
The report can be downloaded at: https://pl.gigroup.com/barometr-nastrojow-pracownikow/
Methodology: “Employee Mood Barometer.” CAVI survey 12.07-23.08.2020. Employees: candidates from the bases of Gi Group, Grafton Recruitment, and Wyser, n=591. Employers: clients of Gi Group, Grafton Recruitment, Wyser, ProProgressio, and LeanPassion, n=370.
Author: Joanna Wanatowicz, Business Director, Grafton Recruitment
