A survey by the career platform JobsDB shows an increased number of people currently employed (43% compared to 39% last year) in Hong Kong have indicated they are looking to change jobs. Main reasons for seeking new employment opportunities are better salaries and more career advancement opportunities.
Another research, conducted by a large multinational recruitment firm, reveals five drivers for Hong Kong employees to switch jobs. The first driver is boredom; when the daily routine work of their job makes employees feel uninspired and unmotivated they start seeking new employment opportunities. When employees feel there are no opportunities for career progression (second driver) or they feel underappreciated (third driver), they also will be more likely to look elsewhere for a job. Fourth, the current start-up environment leads to more and more people starting their own business. And finally, due to the challenges in overcoming the generation gap, a lot of the times employees don’t feel the company culture is a good fit for them.
Although it is not always possible for companies to increase salaries, there are other measures they can take in order to retain talent. Next to anticipating the drivers mentioned in the previous paragraph, work-life balance is also becoming more and more important to employees.
The JobsDB survey found that 89% of people worked overtime, four hours per week on average, and 75% did not receive any compensation. Furthermore, email and smartphones lead to 61% of the respondents stating to work in their “personal time”.
When respondents had changed careers the average salary increase they received was 5.3%, compared to the average salary increase of 3.9% of those who stayed with the same company. People working in accounting, IT, and real estate and property management received the highest salary increases. The lowest salary increases were given to those working in design, hospitality and F&B, and sales, customer services and business development.
Source:
South China Morning Post
HumanResources, Q1
