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Skip to main contentWhy people choose to stay in, leave, or choose a new job
Flexibility: The No. 2 Workforce Priority
Salary: The Full Package
Upskilling and Reskilling: The 2024 Trend Win-Win
Company Culture: Beyond the Buzzword
If you understand your people, you understand what drives your business. But do you really know what motivates them?
Our comprehensive workforce survey provides deep insights into employees’ thoughts about their work environment, challenges, and motivations. These insights are invaluable to align your workforce strategies with real-world data, helping you stay competitive and foster a more engaged and productive workforce.
We surveyed 10,000 professionals across all career stages, from entry-level to CEO, in six markets: the USA, UK, Brazil, Middle East, Australia, and India. The results provide a global snapshot of workforce sentiment across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
Explore the Workforce 2024 survey results and gain deeper insights into your workforce’s evolving expectations and needs.
Surprisingly, salary is only the second reason most employees choose to accept a new job in 2024.
The top reason is flexible working hours.
This shifts slightly for the over 45s, when salary nudges into the top spot, but even then, the two are neck-and-neck. In section one below, we look at how this varies among different regions, genders, and age groups.
Want to keep your talent happy so they won’t leave?
Prioritize their pay and benefits. Our respondents told us that having a generous compensation package makes them more likely to stay put. But there’s more to work than money, and many other factors also play a crucial role in retention.
GENEROUS COMPENSATION
TOTAL FLEXIBILITY OF WORKING HOURS
HIGH JOB SECURITY
COLLEAGUES I ENJOY WORKING WITH
MANAGER I RESPECT AND TRUST
DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Our survey revealed that the primary reasons people quit their jobs are centered around five key drivers. Low compensation is the most significant driver, as employees seek better financial rewards elsewhere. Limited career advancement opportunities also push employees to leave, as they crave growth and development that their current roles may not offer.
Additionally, a lack of job security makes employees feel uncertain about their future, prompting them to seek more stable opportunities. Inflexible working hours are another critical factor, especially in today’s environment where flexibility is increasingly valued. Lastly, poor company culture or misaligned values lead employees to seek workplaces that better align with their personal and professional beliefs.
LOW COMPENSATION
LACK OF CAREER ADVANCEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
LACK OF JOB SECURITY
INFLEXIBLE WORKING HOURS POLICY
POOR COMPANY CULTURE OR VALUES
Flexible working is a key priority for talent everywhere. It’s consistently one of the top reasons people join or stay with a company. Women prioritize flexible hours slightly more than men, likely due to greater familial responsibilities, while younger workers place less emphasis on it.
Regardless of age, region, or role, flexibility remains a crucial factor—sometimes second only to salary.
60% said they would stay in a job they hate if they had flexible working hours
Offering flexible hours doesn’t necessarily mean your employees will be content commuting to the office. According to our survey, the ability to work from anywhere remains a top priority for many professionals. This issue is increasingly divisive, with a growing number of employees preferring to work remotely rather than in the office.
As we move into 2024, more professionals are choosing remote work over traditional office settings. Employers who enforce strict office mandates risk losing top talent and future leaders to competitors who offer greater flexibility.
-Ariel. C. Avgar, David M. Cohen Professor of Labor Relations at the ILR School at Cornell University
Money matters, but it's not just about the paycheck—employees value the total rewards package. This is a key factor in whether they stay with or leave a company.
While benefits are important across the board, they matter slightly less to employees in the UK and Australia, likely due to lower reliance on private health insurance. Younger employees also place less emphasis on benefits, though they remain a priority.
It's essential to tailor your total rewards package to the preferences of your region and target age groups to meet employee and candidate expectations.
We’ve heard organizations are worried their people don’t have the necessary skills to adapt to AI and other technological advancements. But our data shows people are also worried that they’ll soon be replaced by AI.
People are keen to learn new skills to help them do their jobs better. In fact, 67% would even stay in a job they hated if it offered them opportunities to progress and upskill quickly.
The over-55s don’t feel that they’re encouraged to learn as much as their younger counterparts. Whether this is because they’re in positions with greater responsibility—so their organization struggles when they need to take time out for learning—or because of age bias isn’t clear.
When it comes to AI and other technological advances, more than half of people under 55 are excited about the potential of how it might change the way they work.
This might be because the over-55s feel less supported than their younger colleagues when it comes to learning and development. Or maybe it’s because they’re the least likely to see AI as a threat to their jobs, whereas more than half of those aged 44 and under think they could be replaced by AI within three years.
Whatever the reason, the most crucial point for employers is this—if your people believe, rightly or wrongly, that their job is likely to be replaced by AI in the next three years, they are much more likely to leave now.
If you want to retain the best people in your organization, then you need to communicate with them about how AI might affect their job. Then provide them with the tools and time to upskill or reskill to learn how to use it or to move into another role in the business.
-Ariel. C. Avgar, David M. Cohen Professor of Labor Relations at the ILR School at Cornell University
Nearly half of the employees who fear AI might replace their jobs are considering or actively seeking new employment opportunities. This anxiety about being rendered obsolete by technology drives a significant portion of the workforce to explore new roles where they feel more secure and valued. This trend underscores the importance of companies addressing these concerns as AI advances.
By investing in upskilling and reskilling initiatives, organizations can help employees transition into new roles that leverage AI rather than being threatened by it. Failing to do so may result in a talent drain, as employees seek employers who offer greater job security and opportunities for growth in an AI-driven world.
Compensation is crucial for retaining talent, whether they’ve been upskilled internally or hired for their specific skill sets. However, satisfaction with pay varies. About half of today’s employees feel their salary and benefits are fair for the skills they bring to the table. Yet, nearly 40% believe they are under-compensated, feeling that their contributions are worth more than they’re being paid. This perceived undervaluation often leads to turnover, as employees seek employers who recognize and reward their true worth.
Interestingly, a small percentage—around 8%—believe they earn more than their skills justify. This raises the question: Are these individuals genuinely overpaid, or are they experiencing imposter syndrome, doubting their abilities and value despite their success? This dynamic highlights the complex relationship between compensation, employee perception, and retention.
If your people feel overwhelmed and like they’re not up to the job, something has gone wrong with your company culture, often a lack of the right training or support.
If they don’t believe their success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of their own efforts, they might be struggling with the dreaded imposter syndrome.
It’s a common phenomenon. Yet surprisingly, the people who struggle with it most are right at the top of the corporate food chain. More than 70% of American CEOs admit they struggle with imposter syndrome. Other leaders also feel this way, which might suggest that companies aren’t investing in the right kind of leadership coaching and training—or that they’re promoting people without giving them the tools they need to succeed.
Women are less likely than men to feel like imposters, at 44% and 49% respectively. There’s a significant geographic divide, too, with more people from India and the US struggling with imposter syndrome than their counterparts in the UK, Brazil, and Australia.
71%
of American CEOs admit they struggle with imposter syndrome
