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Catching up with your work force

The advantages of offering an emergent workplace can help co-packers attract and retain top-quality contingent workers.

Pw 8237 Workers

Do you know the difference between an emergent and a traditional worker? Do you know which type works for you? The answers are vital to your success, whether your company provides contract packaging services to product manufacturers, or you’re a product manufacturer that also functions as a contract packager for other consumer product companies.

The contract packaging industry is a huge, important, and just-in-time world in which contingent or temporary workers are the key to managing supply and demand. When demand for co-packing services is high, a temporary work force can be quickly expanded to capitalize on all opportunities. When demand declines, temporary workers can be released for placement with other employers. Spikes in demand need never impact your permanent work force or your mission-critical operations.

But many companies are missing the mark in terms of doing what is necessary to retain valuable existing employees and giving themselves a competitive advantage in recruiting and acquiring top talent.

For more than a decade Spherion Corp., Fort Lauderdale, FL, has analyzed the American workplace through surveys conducted for the company by Harris Interactive. Spherion’s most recent survey exposes a troubling gap between employers and employees on critical workplace issues, including factors that drive retention, draw candidates to one particular employer over another, and surround work-life balance. Spherion also found that fewer than one in five employers is well positioned to attract and retain top talent. According to Spherion’s Emerging Workforce® Study:

• 60% of workers rate time and flexibility as important in retention, but only 35% of employers recognize its importance.

• 49% of employers rate financial compensation as a very important driver of retention, but 69% of workers believe it is.

• On average, employers expect 14% of their work force to leave in the next year, but nearly 40% of employees intend to find a new job in the next 12 months.

• Just 44% of workers believe their companies are taking steps to retain them, and 31% believe there is a turnover problem at their company already.

• Only 34% of human resource managers mention turnover retention as a key concern.

The great divide

One of the biggest disconnects between employers and employees is the importance workers place on their ability to maintain a balance between their professional and private lives. The study found that 86% of workers agreed that work-life balance and fulfillment was a top career priority. Further, 96% said that employers were more attractive to them when they helped employees meet their personal needs by providing work-life balance options. However, employers have not responded to those needs in significant numbers.

Spherion’s research revealed that only 24% of employers offer a formal flextime program, 12% offer telecommuting or remote work options, and 11% offer job sharing, for example.

Of greater concern: 60% of employers don’t plan to offer job sharing, 56% don’t plan to offer telecommuting, and 33% don’t plan to offer flextime.

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