Employers hearing the voices of the deskless and the shift-bound
“The war for talent has challenged organizations to shift their focus to the needs of their deskless workforce,” the study says.
Closing that experiential gap is a matter of survival. Top talent continues to be difficult to acquire and retain as employees demand more of prospective and current employers. WorkForce Software’s 2022 Workforce Experience Gap study says progress is being made, particularly as employers focus on the perceptions of the job by deskless and shift workers.
The global study is based on interviews with nearly 3,500 bosses and direct reports.
Scheduling, and the flexibility to control one’s own schedule, emerged as a major area of concern for employees – not a surprise, given that the number of remote/deskless workers now dominates the workforce. Yet three-quarters of employers who responded to the survey say they don’t yet have online scheduling capabilities for employees, despite the increase in remote, deskless, and shift workers, and 43% say their company does not even offer flexible scheduling.
This could be a problem for the recruit/retain strategy. Of employees surveyed, 79% say they would prefer to work for an organization that offered more flexibility over one that did not. With more than half of employees reporting that they change shift patterns weekly, this would seem to be an area of management focus in 2023.
Similarly, employers are not responding quickly enough to employees who want more mobile communications from the company. The study reports that 46% of employees “would prefer to receive training and information via mobile phone, yet only 20% receive this training option from their organizations.”
Similarly, 45% of employees say they “would prefer to use a single mobile app to communicate and collaborate with team members and management,” but just 14% say their company had such an app.
The study indicated that employers have made strides in meeting employee expectations when it comes to pay and benefits, employee recognition, and communications. Gaps that still need to be addressed include the employer/employee feedback loop and job training methods. Overall, employers need to move from an awareness of what their troops want from the job, to actions that bring about the desired changes.
Read more: What today’s workers want: More money, greater flexibility
“The war for talent has challenged organizations to shift their focus to the needs of their deskless workforce,” the study concludes. “This attention has brought new light to what workers want to remain engaged and productive, drawing managers into the realities of their workers’ day-to-day lives. While managers today are more aligned with their employees and better understand the importance of accessible job training, fair pay rates, flexible scheduling, and employee recognition, they continue to fall short in implementing workplace processes that adequately address these needs.”