Tag Archives: Glassdoor

January 15, 2013 · 4:30 am

Connecting Dots: Employee-style

data point tuesday_500

Back in July, I referenced data from the Glassdoor Q2 2012 Employment Confidence Survey.  If you’ll recall, this quarterly survey monitors four key indicators of employee confidence:  job security, company outlook, salary expectations and re-hire probability.  The Q4 2012 Survey from Glassdoor is out and the results are interesting.

It’s probably not shocking to anyone who reads this blog that half (51%) of employees (including self-employed people) will consider looking for a new Glassdoor logojob if the state of the economy stays the same or improves, with 33% looking for a new job in less than a year and nearly one in five (18%) planning to look for a new job in the next three months.  We’re hearing that our employee base is not engaged and other sources have said that as much as 90% of the employed population will look for a new job in 2013.

Glassdoor ECS Q412 - consider looking for a new job

What’s interesting to me is that, if you look at other data points in this survey, it makes perfect sense that a high percentage of employees think they’ll look for work this year. Why?  Well, according to the survey, 39% of employees don’t expect a pay or cost-of-living increase in 2013 and 21% aren’t sure if they’ll get an increase this year.

Glassdoor ECS Q412 - salary-expectations (2)

So.  60% of employees don’t think – or aren’t sure – they’ll get an increase this year.  I’m thinking that has something to do with the percentage of employees who will be looking for a new job this year.  And guess what?  The most important factor these employees say that will influence their decision on whether or not to accept a job offer is…wait for it…salary and compensation!

Employees are pretty good at connecting dots:

I don’t think I’m going to get a raise this year   +

I’ll be looking for a new job this year  =

The most important factor in my decision to accept a new job will be the salary and compensation

Makes perfect sense to me.

But I also think that a majority of employees will receive raises of some sort this year.  Even small ones.  So why do so many think that there is no soup for them?

Perhaps we’re causing this supposed exodus ourselves by not communicating clearly – at the employee level – what our compensations plans for this year are.  Or, maybe we’re being extremely clear and they don’t believe us.

Either way, it’s a problem.  Either way, we should never forget that our employees are smart and know how to connect the dots.

Maybe it’s time we do the same.

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Filed under China Gorman, Compensation, Connecting Dots, Employee Loyalty, Engagement, Glassdoor, HR Data

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October 9, 2012 · 4:30 am

7.8% Huh?

Most people saw the U.S. jobs report numbers on Friday and thought, “this doesn’t make sense.”   All the data we’ve been seeing shows that employment continues to be weak and job seekers continue to drop out of the job market.

Monster’s Employment Index for September showed a 2 point decline month-over-month:

That’s a decline in U.S. online job posting activity.  This would indicate a slowdown in hiring not a hiring urge of massive proportions.

The Glassdoor Q3 Employment Confidence Survey shows a pretty strong worsening of confidence on the part of job seekers that they’ll find a job in the next six months:

This wouldn’t indicate that job seekers see people around them getting jobs.  And 59% of employed people don’t think they could replace their job in six months.  Six months!

So what’s the deal with the massive reduction in the unemployment rate from 8.1% to 7.8%?  Well, as I wrote here, the official BLS unemployment rate combines data from two surveys conducted by the U.S. government:  The Establishment Survey which surveys employers and the Household Survey which surveys thousands of households on a range of topics including employment.  The two surveys tell two very different stories in September.

Here’s the Establishment Survey portion of the jobs report from the BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics):

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 114,000 in September. In 2012, employment growth has averaged 146,000 per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011.

So we’re down from the monthly average in both 2011 and 2012.  And the monthly average in 2011 was higher than this year’s monthly average.  Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 114,000 in September.  That isn’t enough to cover the new entrants into the labor force – much less hundreds of thousands of unemployed job seekers.

The Household Survey tells a different story:

Total employment rose by 873,000 in September, following 3 months of little change. The employment-population ratio increased by 0.4 percentage point to 58.7 percent, after edging down in the prior 2 months. The overall trend in the employment-population ratio for this year has been flat. The civilian labor force rose by 418,000 to 155.1 million in September, while the labor force participation rate was little changed at 63.6 percent.

So.  Total employment – as reported by individuals not employers – rose by 873,000 in September following “three months of little change.”  Despite declining confidence in almost every other survey we see, 873,000 people reported working in September who weren’t working in August.  It boggles the mind.

Here’s where those jobs came from:

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Part-timers.  600,000 new part-timers.  Part-timers who could be working as little as a couple of hours a week from home. Truly, it boggles the mind.

This is all very confusing.  We’re covered over in statistics, trends and data that tell us that the employment picture is stagnant at best.  Confidence in the job market continues to decline. And the unemployment rate went down .3% in one month.

I’m with Jack Welch:  I can’t connect these dots.

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Filed under Bureau of Labor Statistics, Connecting Dots, Employment Data, Glassdoor, HR Data, Jack Welch, Monster, U.S. Department of Labor, Unemployment, Unemployment Rate

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July 17, 2012 · 4:30 am

Paycheck Pessimism

Most people in the HR space know Glassdoor™ as a social media site that gathers anonymous information about employers from current and former employees.  Users can leverage their Facebook network to uncover connections at a company, view current openings, as well as review proprietary information that includes salary reports, company reviews, interview questions, CEO approval ratings and more.  It’s an incredibly useful site for job seekers to get the real skinny on a potential employer from the people who know it best:  its employees.

Of course, for employers and HR professionals, the site offers a full array of branding and recruitment-oriented services including the ability to create enhanced company profiles, Facebook career profiles, targeted job ads and more.

But for our purposes at Data Point Tuesday, we like Glassdoor™ because of its Quarterly Employment Confidence Survey.  Couple this report with monthly BLS reports and you get a robust picture of workforce and employer confidence and other dynamics.

For example, the Glassdoor Employment Confidence Survey surveys employees on their confidence in the areas of pay raises, job market expectations, company outlook and job security.  It’s great data and it’s presented in a highly consumable format.

The most recent survey was conducted by Harris Interactive between June 12 and 14 of 2,208 adults 18 years or older and was published on July 6.  Generally the data show improving or holding steady opinions on workplace confidence dynamics by employees with the exception of optimism in pay raises.  This dropped since last quarter to 40% (from 43%), while 37 % do not expect a pay increase – a low since the survey began in Q4 2008.

At first glance this seems a little off.  Expectations for a raise are at the lowest point since the 4th quarter of 2008 – and lower than the 4th quarter of 2008 when the economy was at its worst? Aren’t we starting to feel better about the economy?  Well, some of us are and some of us clearly are not!  The report says this:

  • Employee optimism in pay raises has dropped slightly since last quarter to 40%, while 37% reported they do not expect a pay increase…
  • The gender gap is closing around expectations for a pay increase over the next 12 months; 41% of women expect an increase compared to 40% of men.  However, men’s optimism around pay has declined five percentage points since last quarter while women’s optimism crept up one percentage point.
  • Younger workers are significantly less optimistic about pay raises than last quarter; 37% of 18-34 years olds expect pay raises in the next 12 months whereas nearly half (49%) expected raises last quarter.  All of the other age ranges have increased 2-4% from last quarter – 48% of 35-55, 42% of 45-54 and 36% of 55+ year olds.

So, if I read this right, men and young people under 35 report strong declines in optimism about pay increases while women report slight increase in optimism.

Men:  down 5%

Young people:  down 12%

Women:  up 1%.

How does this track with your turnover and engagement data?  Tracking turnover data by gender and age demographic is common.  How about engagement data?  Can you make connections between this lack of reported paycheck optimism among males and young people to the engagement data in your organization?  It might be worth a look.

And it might be worth keeping an eye on during the coming quarters – particularly in relation to the election in November.  Young people played a very active and pivotal role in the last presidential election.  Is their level of paycheck pessimism such that they won’t participate as strongly?  Or will it motivate them to even higher levels of activism?  And how will that translate to your organization’s turnover and engagement rates?

This is what’s so great about data.  They let you connect import dots.  Also, they always raise more questions than answers – but if you’re interested and aware you’ll start asking more of the right questions and connecting critical dots.  And who knows?  That could lead to formulating more effective people management and business risk mitigation strategies.

Isn’t that what HR is all about?

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Filed under Bureau of Labor Statistics, Connecting Dots, Engagement, Glassdoor, HR, HR Data, Turnover

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