The PR agency MSL The Practice, part of Publicis Groupe Romania, and the recruitment platform eJobs Romania launched the study What Romanians want from a job, which analyzes the intention of Romanian employees to change employers in the next period, as well as the objectives their professional, the criteria for choosing an employer, the factors for changing the job, the factors for increasing trust and loyalty towards the employer or the preferred way of working.
“In a constantly changing labor market, we wanted to see what are the factors that determine Romanian employees to stay at a job or what causes them to look for new career opportunities. Of course, for most employees, the salary and benefits offered are the main reasons for choosing an employer. In recent years, however, we notice an increasingly obvious trend of a need for emotional comfort, belonging, to be part of something meaningful and not to go to work just for the salary. We want to help companies, first of all, with a detailed analysis of the employer image in order to come up with a suitable Employer Branding strategy, and this study is a first step in this process”, said Stela Toderașcu, Employer Branding Director, MSL The Practice.
From the perspective of recruiting new employees, the challenges faced by companies, especially in certain fields, are very high, with a narrow pool of candidates and, automatically, considerable associated costs.
“This puts a lot of pressure on the rollout of programs and initiatives with immediate effect, as employees do not seem to have much patience to wait for the employer to find the right measures to retain them. In addition to measures with the fastest possible impact, companies must also analyze whether benefit programs that traditionally treat all employees in common are still relevant to them. An option that we discuss more and more often together with our clients is the customization of certain benefits with what is relevant for smaller groups of employees or even on an individual level,” added Stela Toderașcu.
“2022 was a ceiling year on the labor market in terms of applications, and 2023 came with an obvious increase in candidates’ interest in changing jobs. If in the first 6 months of last year we had 5.1 million applications, in the same period of 2023 almost 5.3 million applications were registered. Candidates are very attentive to what is happening in the market, to the jobs that companies post, and are more willing than last year to make a change if their criteria from an employer and a job are met “, completed Raluca Dumitra, Head of Marketing, eJobs Romania.
What Romanians want from a job?
Job stability and intention to change jobs
According to the new study, only 21% of Romanian employees intend to stay at their current job in the next year, the majority declaring that they want a career change. While there are differences between employee categories and industries, the numbers may even be worrying for some employers. Some of the employees are open to making this change because they want a job in another field, but most of them are determined to find a better paying job, especially since not all employers have indexed salaries in line with inflation.
Regarding the desired field of activity, over 40% of managers would like the new job to be in the same field as the current one, while people from the “blue collar” category (workers) show the greatest openness to a change of field (40% of them). Also, the intention to change the job is higher (over 75%) among employees in the automotive, HORECA, oil & gas or retail fields, with the lowest fluctuation rate being in IT & C and Media & Advertising.
Top 3 factors that determine the change of job
Salary benefits and work atmosphere are both the main motivational factors in choosing an employer and the main factors that determine the change of job. 6 out of 10 Romanians are determined to look for another job because of the unfriendly working atmosphere, more than those who would make a change for a better salary elsewhere (55%).
For 60% of managers, a toxic management style is the most important factor driving them to make a career change, closely followed by a hostile work environment (with 58%), both of which are more important in the decision to change employers than the opportunity for a better salary (48%). The desire for a higher salary is an important factor in changing jobs mainly for workers and non-managerial employees.
Frequency of job change
The new study indicates that most of the unemployed (39%) remain unemployed for up to 6 months, after which the percentages drop considerably. In addition, managers are the ones who rarely change employers, for 36% of them the last job change was 5 years ago. The average length of time spent at the same job is 2.5 years.
Criteria for choosing an employer
For 86% of the employees participating in the study, the salary and benefits offered are the main reasons for choosing an employer, but especially for non-management employees, where 90% of them chose salary and benefits as the main reason. In second place, with 62%, is the balance between professional and personal life, with a much more important weight for managers, with 66%.
At the same time, the working atmosphere also plays an essential role, with 59% of employees motivated by this factor in choosing an employer, being more important than the possibility of improvement or the career plan for the majority of study participants. However, managers are more motivated by the possibility of improvement and the organizational culture, compared to the other categories of employees.
Factors increasing trust towards the employer
For 7 out of 10 Romanians, a transparent, trust-based and pressure-free management style is the main factor in increasing loyalty to an employer, with increased importance for managers (8 out of 10). Pleasant working atmosphere is in 2nd place with 64% and salary increases in 3rd place with 59%. Thus, even if salary and fringe benefits are the main factor in choosing an employer during a recruitment process, they are not the main factor that determines employees to stay at their current job. For more than half of the study participants, additional benefits, such as meal vouchers or subscriptions to various services, and job and company stability have the greatest influence in increasing employer loyalty.