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In a tight labor market, employee sentiment has become all the more important to sustain a productive and healthy workforce. Employees are flight risks when they feel their needs aren’t heard or considered, and companies that understand this are going to new—and high-tech—lengths to prevent attrition.
Recent reports show that employees are more willing to take a job leap from an undesirable work environment, especially if they feel their current role is detrimental to their mental health. In a Deloitte survey, 60% of employees and 64% of managers say they’ve strongly considered quitting their jobs for a role that better supports their well-being.
The biggest flight risks likely reside within the early talent pipeline. Surveyed Gen Z (35%) and millennial (31%) workers profess they’ll seek new jobs in the coming months despite an opaque economic outlook, according to PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears report. And 26% of respondents say they’ll likely change jobs in the next year, up from 19% of respondents in 2022, according to the same survey.
That sentiment has caused people leaders to reconsider what levers to pull to drive employee engagement and satisfaction. One company mandated that employees take off at least 20 days a year, while another, Genpact, is taking advantage of A.I. In 2018, the company began measuring its employees’ happiness with an internal A.I. chatbot called Amber.
The following excerpt details how the company uses the tool to assess and act on employee sentiment.
“Amber interacts with new hires eight to 10 times a year in their first six months and at least four times a year for all other employees. The chatbot inputs employee responses and asks questions based on past and present answers, becoming more ‘intelligent’ as it accumulates data. At the end of each conversation, Amber generates a mood score reflecting the employee’s sentiments…
The chatbot provides real-time analytics, allowing Genpact to create policies that reflect the workforce’s immediate wants and needs, the firm says. The tech-first approach has proved successful, Genpact says. It receives an average response rate of 82%, up from 77% in 2022.”
Read the full story here.
Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton
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Friday's June jobs report showed persistent hiring across specific industries, including leisure and hospitality, which is staffing up after laying off workers during the pandemic.
“Hospitals and nursing homes need more workers to serve the fast-growing elderly population…And industrial and infrastructure businesses continue to snap up workers for projects related to electric-vehicle batteries and semiconductors.” —Wall Street Journal
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- U.S. labor unions are gaining more traction and bargaining power in contract negotiations with large employers due to the tight labor market. Reuters
- New York City’s law regulating the use of A.I. in hiring contains several gaps that could hamper its effectiveness in decreasing potential discrimination against job candidates. Axios
- A culture of niceness at a company could be just as damaging as a toxic workplace, as it often discourages clear communication and confrontation, according to a social psychologist. CNBC
- More companies have moved toward flatter organizational structures in the past year, but research finds that flat structures rarely work well outside of smaller firms. New York Times
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Soft landing. The U.S. job market saw considerable gains again in June, prompting economists to proclaim that the Fed is on track for a “soft landing,” where the economy slows just enough to cool inflation but not enough to tumble into a recession. —Christopher Rugaber
Poached tweets. Elon Musk’s lawyer sent a letter to Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that the company is poaching dozens of former employees and using Twitter’s trade secrets to create a “copycat” application. —Kylie Robison
Dashing minimum wage. Food delivery companies are suing New York City after passing a landmark law that increases the minimum wage for app-based delivery workers. —AP
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