Businesses experts say it’s time to rethink how to reward loyalty with workers changing jobs much more often than before.
Businesses consultants are calling on governments and companies to consider changing their long service leave offerings to retain a new generation of workers who are changing jobs much more often than before.
Workplace coach and Hello Coach chief executive officer Victoria Mills said executives would be better off spending their money on strategies such as increasing the number of annual, sick leave or maternity leave days or other incentives such as bonuses.
“We have an opportunity to reimagine how we reward loyalty,” Mills said.
“People leave organisations because a lot of organisations have a failure to care.”
Currently, depending on the state, territory and employer, people can access about three months of full-time paid long service leave after being with a company for between seven and 10 years.
“The world is changing, we can’t provide guarantee that, yes, that job is going to be there in 10 years but what we can do is provide benefits that we know we can provide our people,” Mills said.
A report released last year by research and analytics company McCrindle showed the average tenure for Australian employees is two years and nine months, with a future generation of employees expected to have 18 jobs over six different careers in their life.
Mills said her conversations with some employers on the idea of scrapping long service leave for an alternative have been positive.
“Some of my colleagues and CEOs in other companies are all for it because they’re losing good people, “ she said.
Andrea Sumner was manager of workplace relations at human resources consultancy business Red Wagon.
She said long service leave was a valuable benefit and the solution might not be scrapping it, but creating more options such as offering the entitlement before seven years.
“I don’t think it’s helpful to say ‘Get rid of it, it’s outdated’,” Sumner said.
“I think it would be more useful to talk about the portability to long service leave within a sector, rather then scrapping it all together.
“Once you scrap something, you’re unlikely to get it back.”
The average tenure for Australian employees is two years and nine months, with a future generation of employees expected to have 18 jobs over six different careers in their life.Credit:Edwin Tan/Getty Images
The idea has already been adopted by theACTgovernment, where workers in industries with high levels of short-term employment such as hairdressers, beauticians and some hospitality workers were eligible for portable longer service leave, allowing them retain their leave balance from a previous workplace.
Sumner said while employers were struggling to retain their workforce, they are finding more flexibility and improving the office culture has helped.
“Businesses are becoming very quickly aware that having a good culture where people have agency over their job design seems to be what’s the burning issue,” she said.
“I don’t think people are solely motivated by money.”
https://7news.com.au/business/workplace-matters/businesses-are-struggling-to-keep-workers-heres-what-some-experts-suggest-c-8964878
