Employees Have Mixed Feelings About 2012 Outlook

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

How are employees feeling about their employers these days? Well, it seems like the gap between the 99 percent and the 1 percent isn’t the only growing divide these days. The gap between highly engaged employees and those who are “checked out” (or disengaged) from their jobs is widening, according to The Randstad Employee Attachment Index.

The Index found that while overall, many employee attitudes held steady from last quarter’s Index, there’s a large divide with half of employees feeling very positive about their jobs and their workplace, but the other half extremely worried about losing their jobs. To hold onto their jobs, 24 percent are willing to take pay cuts or work longer hours.

Here’s the good news about employee attitudes:

78 percent feel inspired each day to do their best in their jobs.
69 percent enjoy going to work every day.
64 percent believe their efforts at work are recognized and valued.

Now, the bad:

19 percent feel it is likely they will lose their jobs.
Almost a quarter (24 percent) of workers say it is likely they will get a pay cut.
76 believe it is unlikely they will receive a promotion.

“With the continued ups and downs of the economy, U.S. workers report very mixed expectations for 2012,” said Joanie Ruge, senior vice president and chief employment analyst for the staffing firm, in announcing the survey. “Many [workers] are taking precautions such as cutting back on expenses and putting more towards savings just in case.”

While some employees are worried, others have high hopes. Almost half (46 percent) think the job market will improve in 2012. And when it does, 47 percent plan to explore other opportunities. The risk is especially strong with highly engaged workers, of whom 24 percent say they plan to seek a new job in the next 6 months.

“Companies … need to particularly focus on those workers who are most engaged and, thus, most valuable,” says Ruge. “Our research shows that 33 percent of the most highly engaged employees are likely to leave their companies if offered an enticing new job while 30 percent would seriously consider another job offer. This is a serious threat to employers as the economy recovers.”

What are you doing to make your best employees feel valued and keep them on your team?

Image by Flickr user Scott Anderson (Creative Commons)

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 6:00 am and is filed under Small Business, small business, Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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