The Great Divide: Study Reveals a Growing Disconnect Between Employers and Employees

By Cheryl Santa Maria (Toronto)

The unstable workforce hasn’t seriously influenced employees’ career expectations, according to a recent report. Spherion’s 2009 Emerging Workforce Study reveals that employers need to do more to retain human capital during a downturn or they run the risk losing staff in droves once the economy heals.

An overwhelming degree of employee dissatisfaction has been growing steadily for the past twelve years, largely due to lack of communication between management and general staff. Of the 2,519 participants in the study, only 24 percent of respondents report being “very satisfied” with the career development offered by their employer and only 27 percent are satisfied with overall compensation.

Open Dialogue

In addition to decreasing morale, lack of communication within an organization can create an environment of distrust and insecurity. Irene Chen, a product specialist in the biotech industry for the last five years, has been observing the growing disconnect between employers and employees for some time:

“It’s existed since the day I started working in biotech,” she says. “[I work for] a small firm and we rely heavily on venture capitalists. We need the comfort of knowing where we stand financially… I understand that [some] information is private and can have detrimental effects if leaked, but I think that [withholding information from workers] can decrease worker morale and loyalty.”

Heather Logrippo, a publisher for a luxury real estate magazine in Boston, would agree. “The disconnect I see between my company and its employees is directly related to the strengths or weaknesses of my managers… the most common reasons that employees leave is [because] they don’t feel like they’re getting what they need [in terms of] communication, coaching, or vision from their boss.”

Different Priorities

Employers and employees appear to have differing views regarding job satisfaction. While workers cite compensation and benefits as important, employers have attempted to retain talent by fostering an inclusive corporate culture, a tactic that appears to be backfiring. Despite employer’s attempts to improve management/staff communication, only 27 percent of employees say they have a favorable relationship with their direct report.

Creating an environment of trust is a crucial component of employee retention, best achieved via the introduction of flex time and greater work/life balance. Alison*, an executive with AMD, believes that the ability to maintain balance is integral: “flex options indicate that a company values an employee… and values them as a person,” she says.

Tina Kaslak, President of Resume Writers’ Ink LLC, recently left the corporate world after twenty-plus years as an HR executive for a variety of Fortune 500 companies. For Tina, one of the biggest problems facing the corporate world is the opposing views of employers and employees.

On-the-job frustration “can stem from a lack of communication with management and a lack of corporate directive,” Tina says. “Inconsistencies [tend to] result in a lack of trust… I’d say that lack of trust is the Number 1 problem [in corporate America].”

Management Climate

According to Tina, many managers are lacking crucial people skills – another contributing factor to lowered morale:

“There are people in leadership positions that are purely financial people,” she says. “I think that’s counter-productive, because you don’t have leaders who are capable of leading… companies should move the accounting people out of the way and replace them with people who understand human capital, so that they can merge the financial responsibilities of being a leader with the human side of leadership. I think that’s a big problem in our economy, and I’ve heard that from a number of people in other companies.”

Evelyn*, a marketing executive with HSBC, agrees that management climate has a large influence over employee retention:

“Work satisfaction depends on your day-to-day experiences… and not all managers are created equal. Organizations need to better equip managers to [be able to] ‘walk the talk.’”

Coherency

Employees tend to derive greater contentment from their work when their employer establishes – and maintains – clear objectives: satisfaction regarding growth and earnings potential jumped from 7 percent to 39 percent when employers followed through with a coherent strategy.

“Good managers… spend time on the phones or with their employees in order to… explain and affirm the goals of the company,” Heather says, adding that this helps “employees [reach] their own goals – whether it be financial or progression planning or both.”

Due to the small size of Irene’s firm, staff is encouraged to take ownership over their work and set individual goals, thereby creating a positive work environment:

“Working in a small company enables many opportunities for each of us, [as well as] growing and learning experiences that I think everyone benefits from.”

While employers have made some efforts to retain talent, more needs to be done. Creating open dialogue, fostering an approachable management team and establishing a coherent strategy can greatly influence an employee’s overall happiness, helping to ensure loyalty once the economy resumes.

While Tina concedes that all companies can stand to improve the employer/employee relationship, she notes that larger companies have started to address the growing divide:

“Fortune 500 companies tend to [better] understand the value of human capital. They tend to take the extra step to encourage company morale… because they recognize this will help them in the long run.”

*Names have been changed.