According to the “Global Workforce Study 2014” and “Talent Management & Rewards Study 2014” by the consulting firm Towers Watson, employee recruitment and staff retention remains a big challenge for many companies.

In accordance with the studies above, 17 percent of the employees have the plan to leave their employer during the next two years. Moreover, 23 percent of the workers are uncertain whether they should leave their company or not.

Employee recruitment and retention improvable

The “Global Workforce Study 2014” shows that only 32 percent of all employees have got the impression that their employers have good skills in talent retention. Furthermore, only 33 percent of the employees believe that their employers are good at attracting new talents.

From the “Talent Management & Rewards Study 2014” can be seen that 38 percent of the companies employed more workers in 2014 than they did two years ago. But apart from this positive fact, 38 percent of the companies registered an increase in worker migration and for 80 percent of the companies it is difficult to attract new talents that have got a strong influence on the company’s success. In addition, 62 percent of all employers have difficulties to retain so-called “high potentials”.

Employee desires are misinterpreted by the companies
Towers Watson has evaluated the top drivers for employee recruitment and staff retention in the studies. The results show that companies misinterpreting the employee desires. For workers, job security is the most important criterion inside the job recruitment, followed by the amount of the basic salary on the second place and a challenging job as the third most important factor.

In the area of employee retention the expectations of employees are mostly equal to the expectations of the companies. The basic salary can be mentioned as most important driving force as well as the opportunities to advance the own career. In contrast to this, employees and employers think differently about the importance of job security. While workers ranked job security as the third most important driving force, job security is just the seventh most important factor for employers.

Appreciation is an important driving factor

There are several factors that have a positive impact on the employee engagement. According to the “Global Workforce Study 2014” the following aspects are the most important:

1. A communication that appreciates the worker’s contribution to the company’s success and that makes the employees understand the corporate business
2. A clear understanding of goals and strategies
3. A good work-life balance at a reasonable workload
4. A positive corporate image
5. The involvement of employees in the decision-making processes