Trending in the Workplace: How do tech leaders attract and retain top talent?

There’s a proclaimed war for talent across pretty much every industry right now, and frequently that conversation gets turned towards tech. So how do tech leaders attract and retain top talent?

To get a better idea of what that looks like, we partnered with Blind, a trusted community where verified professionals connect to discuss what matters most, to poll over 11,000 tech workers at companies including Amazon, Deloitte, Facebook, Capital One, Apple, Visa, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Uber to gain deeper insights into employee sentiment. Here’s what we found.

Are you happy with your current job?

Of 11,401 tech employees polled, less than half (45%) reported they are happy with their job. When employees are dissatisfied, your company can end up looking like a constant revolving door.

So what is it that’s making these employees unhappy and at risk for leaving their jobs? The opportunity for career growth and learning (28%), total compensation (24%), and their manager (16%) were reported as the biggest contributing factors for those who responded that they were unhappy with their current job. If people don’t feel like they’re being invested in from a growth and support standpoint, they’re going to keep hopping to new jobs every six months.

For those who reported they were happy with their job, they attributed the happiness to work-life balance (25%), career growth and learning (22%), total compensation (17%), and the team or people they work with (14%). Paying attention to your people’s needs can go a long way for their satisfaction and productivity at work.

Do mobile app options for workplace tools help you be more productive, or are they more so distracting?

The 1,854 tech employees who answered this question are split on whether mobile workplace apps are more productive (53%) or distracting (47%). When asked what types of apps most enhance productivity, communications apps (43%) were reported by far as the biggest productivity booster.

A large number (40%) of employees polled also reported expense management, project management, benefits and HR, and/or travel management apps most enhanced their productivity. When it comes to productivity tools, your employees need to be able to gain access wherever they are if you’re going to get them to adopt these tools. In evaluating solutions, look for tools that provide a great mobile and desktop experience.

How many hours of mindless work do you automate with scripts each week?

More than half of the 1,112 tech employees that responded to this question (59%) automate at least an hour’s worth of mindless work each week.

But you don’t have to leave it to them to automate. Many of the productivity tools your company can adopt, like travel and expense management, can automate tasks and processes for employees, saving them time and your company money. For example, TravelBank automates expense capture and the travel bookings approval flow.

“Using TravelBank feels equivalent to hiring a people operations coordinator in house. It takes care of all the little (but time consuming!) things a person would do manually, but without the actual cost of hiring someone,” stated Jennifer Leshkevich, Jumpcut.

Will tech automation and AI cause an employment crisis?

Of 5,498 tech employees, less than half (45%) believe automation and AI are a threat to employment. You can automate tasks like populating an expense report with content from a receipt or making a cup of coffee, but you can’t automate the human experience. A company may still pay humans to meet and greet customers at a cafe while robots make the coffee.

Truly knowing how to grow and inspire your people is another thing you can’t automate. It comes from empathy and context alignment with your business’ goals, vision, and mission.

Preventing Turnover

If your company doesn’t know its cost of turnover, you need to figure it out. In most cases, the cost of attrition is detrimental. Especially in industries where there is a war for talent. No company wants to find itself asking, “Who left us a year ago and how do we get them back?”

Several things could attribute to employee dissatisfaction, and ultimately turnover. Your teams could be hiring wrong, or perhaps your company hasn’t actually built the culture candidates are led to expect. Worse even, without realizing it, your company may not be supporting its employees and their career growth.

Mitigating these risks while building a better, more inclusive and inviting company culture, supporting career growth, providing the right productivity tools, and empowering great leadership will go far in attracting and retaining top talent in the tech industry, and beyond.

Methodology

Blind is a trusted community where verified professionals connect to discuss what matters most. Professionals anonymously communicate in private company channels and openly with users across industries. Blind is a place where 2.8M+ professionals worldwide share advice, provide honest perspectives, discuss company culture and discover relevant career information.

Each of the four questions was conducted as part of an individual poll in the Blind community. TravelBank analyzed these four questions to consider currently trending topics within the workplace, particularly around how leading tech companies are attracting and retaining top talent and the current state of productivity tools and automation. Percentages were rounded to the nearest whole number.

We chose to partner with Blind to uncover workplace trends because we deeply support their mission towards increasing transparency in the workplace and breaking down professional barriers. We’ve seen firsthand how individuals have taken the advice and perspectives from Blind to positively impact their professional lives. We very much encourage you to join Blind’s community if you haven’t already.

Are you happy with your current job?

This question ran as a poll to the Blind community from 09/03/2019 to 09/18/2019 and gained 11,401 responses.

Do mobile app options for workplace tools help you be more productive, or are they more so distracting?

This question ran as a poll to the Blind community from 9/18/2019 to 9/20/2019 and gained 1,854 responses.

How many hours of mindless work do you automate with scripts each week?

This question ran as a poll to the Blind community from 08/17/2019 to 08/20/2019 and gained 1,112 responses.

Will tech automation and AI cause an employment crisis?

This question ran as a poll to the Blind community from 6/24/2019 to 6/27/2019 and gained 5,498 responses.