How to align occupational health support with workforce demographics

Employee Benefits poll: The majority (94%) of organisations have planned on expanding their workforce in 2023, but said they foresee issues with talent shortages, according to an online survey among Employee Benefits readers.

Conversely, 3% were not going to increase their workforce, and were staffed correctly at the time, while 2% planned to redistribute talent internally. The same percentage said they were going to use a combination of recruitment and internal redistribution.

Meanwhile, no respondents intended to expand their workforce while foreseeing no talent shortage challenges.

Last week, BusinessLDN, Federation of Small Businesses London, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Confederation of British Industry London released the results of a survey of more than 1,000 London business leaders and HR managers, finding that 77% of firms were reporting open vacancies, and of those, 65% are struggling to fill them.

The research also revealed that specialist, skilled and managerial jobs were the toughest to recruit. Some of the biggest challenges to recruitment included competition from other firms (40%), a lack of flexibility on offer (37%), and the job entailing anti-social hours (31%).

With most Employee Benefits readers fearing talent shortages, benefits to attract and retain staff are a higher priority than ever, while organisations are working to keep up with changing employee needs and demands.

Recent research from Bloomberg Intelligence found that 73% of London office workers would walk if their ability to work from home was removed, for example. For 64%, only a pay rise of 11% or higher would sway them, suggesting that inflation-busting pay rises and a commitment to flexibility and hybrid working are among the factors needed to deal with the ongoing talent crisis.

Meanwhile, 45% of UK and US employees would consider 'conscious quitting' if they did not align with their employer's values, with 35% saying they had already done so in the past, according to research by Paul Polman.

Take part in our next poll: Does your organisation offer free period products to staff?

Zoe Wickens is a journalist with five years of experience writing for trade and business to business publications. She joined Employee Benefits as a reporter in May 2021 and writes news and features content for the website. She won the Willis Towers Watson pay, reward and employee benefits journalist of the year award in 2023. Before writing about the HR, reward and benefit industry she worked as a reporter for publications about the optical and eyewear market and the UK stock market.View full profile

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