5 Facts About Career Today

With the start of a new year and a new decade, your organization is no doubt reflecting on talent attraction and retention strategies that will support organizational performance in the years to come. And with the current unemployment rate at a 50-year low, your talent management strategy has never been so crucial to your organization’s success, nor so difficult to design. In a job market where the world is the employee’s oyster, what can we do to attract and retain top talent?

As you consider your organization’s strategy going forward, keep in mind these five career facts from our ongoing research on engagement and career development.

1   Professional development is an essential element of employee satisfaction. Employees in our client organizations consistently cite growth as the number one thing that would improve their job satisfaction.

2   But career opportunities are limited. Just 28% of organizations consider internal candidates when filling vacancies,[1] and fewer than two thirds of employees feel that they have career opportunities in their current organization.

3   And many express uncertainties regarding their career. While 13% of employees feel they do not have career opportunities, more than a third neither agree nor disagree. These findings indicate a certain degree of ambivalence around career and a need for increased clarity and guidance on this topic.

4   Unfortunately for some, the only way forward is out. Career is the second most common reason employees consider leaving their organization, and those who feel they do not have career opportunities are four times more likely to leave in the next year.

5   Luckily, it’s not just about a new job. Employees cite skills development and growth and formal career opportunities as top drivers of job satisfaction. This is consistent with findings in BlessingWhite’s 2017 career research, which indicates that 85% of the workforce sees no problem with staying in the same job as long as they can continue to develop their skills.

BlessingWhite’s research indicates that focusing on your employees’ career and professional development is a significant competitive advantage. Career has the power of driving deeper engagement and commitment to your organization, while setting the stage to attract outside talent looking for an inspiring workplace where they can make a difference.

Click here to take part in our latest career research and learn more about equipping employees and managers.

[1] Cappelli, Peter. May-June 2019. “Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong,” Harvard Business Review, Issue 3, p. 51. Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/05/recruiting.

About the Authors

Colleen Casey

When I was about 8 years old, I made the obligatory pilgrimage of every born and bred New Jersey native to the Thomas Edison museum. The other children and I pummeled our patient tour guide with innumerable questions (mostly pertaining to whether or not Mr. Edison had died on the premises). Upon learning that Mr. Edison had not received much in the way of a formal education, I inquired “But how was he so smart if he never went to school?!” The simple and astute response of the guide – “He asked a lot of questions.” My career in public opinion and employee polling has led me to do just that – ask a lot of questions in order to better understand how others see the world and what shapes those perceptions. In my current role, I use the insights that I gain from engagement surveys to help our client organizations better understand how their employees view their work, their leaders and the organization’s culture in order to enable them to implement meaningful change based on employee feedback. I feel that my time spent studying sociology and living in France provided me with a unique opportunity to see the world through a different lens and understand how culture informs the way we view ourselves, the world around us, and the institutions that shape us. These academic and personal experiences have been highly valuable to me in my career, heightening my sensitivity and awareness of the necessity to bring a unique approach to client measurement strategies, an approach that aligns with and reflects their unique organizational culture.