Professionals’ interest in changing jobs is still at an all-time high of 47 percent, survey finds.
The Universum Talent Survey, which includes 48 industries over 50 occupational groups, has named government and private companies in its Most Attractive Employers of 2021 survey.
Coming out tops in the business/commerce space are the South African Reserve Bank, Transnet, Google, Investec, Unilever, AB InBev, Discovery, Coca-Cola South Africa and the National Treasury.
The survey provided insight into professionals’ expectations in a constantly changing employment landscape.
The change in the number of considered employers has shifted throughout the years and business/commerce is leading the pack in terms of employer choices. Interest in searching for a career in education, however, has reduced, as has health/medicine. This reveals that the industries demonstrating growth are the ones experienced hires feel would fulfil their current career trajectories.
Although LinkedIn is the frontrunner for online usage in finding information about employer brands and information, the employers’ career websites and corporate websites are still relevant in finding the most up-to-date, credible insights, Universum said.
WhatsApp ranks highly for information sharing and it emerged that it is considered important to keep hires’ online presence up-to-date and engaging, thus having this medium to communicate effectively and quickly.
The survey found that Woolworths topped the list as the biggest player in the business/commerce social media space, while Tesla took the top spot in the engineering/technology category with the CSIR taking pole position in the sciences.
Many respondents indicated that while engaging with talent is important, another important factor is understanding current talent’s satisfaction within their main fields of occupation.
As the industries are analysed more deeply, specific industries emerge as forerunners in the satisfaction stakes. This is likely to encourage staff to be promoters of the brands in question. The frontrunner is still computer software, with e-commerce growing in the wake of the pandemic in terms of recommendations.
Over the years, the need to change employers within six months has increased steadily. Trust in organisational leadership has improved, however, there is still room for more improvement. And many respondents noted their trust in leadership helped them determine more readily whether or not to leave their current employers.
The survey found that trust in organisational vision has improved from 2020 to 2021 and this shows that a lot of the most attractive employer brands were communicating their vision well. Interest in changing jobs is still at an all-time high of 47 percent.
An encouraging statistic emerging from the survey is that 62 percent of respondents would prefer to work for an organisation founded in South Africa.
