According to The Edge Financial Daily, a study conducted by recruitment firm Randstad, showed that while employees in all three countries gave top priority to work-life balance, employers gave little prominence to it, and ranked it second last in a total of nine categories.
Apart from work-life balance, the categories covered were: career progression, a company’s financial health, pleasant work atmosphere, job security, company’s good reputation, stimulating work, latest technologies used at work, and company giving back to society.
While employees sought career progression as the second most important aspect of their jobs, employers gave it a ranking of only 5, offering their organisation’s financial health and good reputation as the main attractions instead.
According to Randstad, these vastly differing findings further highlighted the expectation gap between employers and employees.
“A gap in expectations of a pleasant work atmosphere was also found between employees and employers.
“The attractiveness factor ranked fairly highly among employees. However, employers scored poorly in this area — just one position higher than work-life balance,” the The Edge Financial Daily quoted the firm as saying in a statement.
Randstad Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia managing director Michael Smith said the results from this year’s Randstad Employer Brand Research were far from encouraging.
“It’s widely known that work-life balance has become highly important for employees of all demographics. Our research just reaffirmed and measured that attribute, the daily quoted Smith as saying.
“The stakes are high for these organisations. By not addressing the evolving wants and needs of employees, they risk losing the very talent that helped them build their strong reputations and financial health,” he said, adding that employer branding efforts needed to be very carefully re-examined.
The study, conducted annually, covers the 75 largest companies in the world with over 160,000 global respondents. It will culminate in the Randstad Employer Brand Award, currently in its 17th edition.
The award is presented each year to the most attractive employer in 26 countries across the globe.