This explains why many people, especially the young and ambitious, hop from job to job, and the practice is now causing employers a big headache.
In fact, 94% of companies covered in a recent LinkedIn survey have reported that they are concerned about employee retention. Many have resorted to bumping up salaries and offering more benefits to keep their workers.
As Vic Sithasanan, managing director of online recruitment agency JobStreet Malaysia, told FMT Business, people are open to upgrading their skills or learning new ones to put themselves on a more promising career path.
He said employees now also care about their retirement benefits and they want paid time off as well as hybrid working arrangements.
Rohit Kalsy, country manager for Malaysia and head of emerging markets in Southeast Asia at LinkedIn, pointed out that employees, especially professionals, can now easily define their own playbook for career advancement and success.
“For instance, the traditional approach of rising up the corporate ladder and salary scale in a linear upward fashion is not the only way,” he told FMT Business.
He said that by choosing a non-linear career path, professionals can use their skills across industries. “This can become their point of differentiation,” he said.
Skills that employers want
The LinkedIn survey has shown that the skills needed most for a particular job has changed over the years. For instance, 27% of the skills needed for a specific job in 2015 are no longer relevant for the same job today.
The pace of change has accelerated since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and could reach 50% by 2025. The same survey showed that between 2021 and 2025, at least three new skills will be required for a specific job.
For recruiters, this has become a major challenge, with 55% of them having trouble getting the candidate with the right skills for the job.
Rohit said that in Southeast Asia, nine in 10 recruiters agree that a candidate’s skills set will become the biggest priority in the next 18 months.
Hard skills such as disruptive technical skills are highly sought after, and so are soft skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, handling ambiguity and the ability to be customer-centric.
Rohit said Malaysians were among the 7.3 million globally who enrolled in the 20 most popular LinkedIn courses last year, almost double the number in the preceding year. “This shows that more are building skills to future-proof their careers,” he added.
How to keep your employees happy
Factors that push employees to look for more lucrative jobs include rising inflation, stagnating real wages and a stubbornly competitive labour market.
However, these challenges are not impossible to overcome.
Rohit said employers can retain talent by fostering a learning culture in their organisations that benefit employees and, by extension, the business.
When recruiting, employers must understand what the job applicant is looking for and align their priorities accordingly.
“Besides compensation and benefits, the top priority for job applicants in the region today are work-life balance and flexible work arrangements,” he said.
The LinkedIn survey shows that companies with internal mobility are able to retain employees for an average of 5.4 years, which is twice as long as those that do not.
In fact, the chance of retaining an employee rises 45% to 64% if he has been given a new position.
Rohit said Malaysian companies have shown signs of being more receptive to using internal talent to fill up vacant positions.
The LinkedIn survey also shows that 85% of businesses are prepared to hire internally to leverage on their employees’ inside perspective. This also gives the employee the sense that he is making progress and that instils loyalty.
“A sound talent management plan is more critical than ever. Businesses want to build a more people-centric culture to attract the right talent so that employees will stay for the long haul,” Rohit said.
For the employee, one way to avoid getting on the “layoff” list is to not become redundant. “They can regularly assess their own skills, strengths and weaknesses,” Sithasanan said.
They can then discuss with their line managers plans to upskill so that they remain relevant, he added.