Most Employees Want to Change Careers - American Society of Employers - Anonym

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Most Employees Want to Change Careers

A recent University of Phoenix® survey uncovered the disturbing fact that 55% of employees have an interest in changing careers. Even more disturbing is the data that shows just 14% of employees are in their dream careers.

Consider for a moment that second number. If your employees are like those surveyed, it means that 86% of them are in jobs they don’t actually want to be in.  Hold that thought and then add this to the mix: Gallup's 2013 State of the American Workplace Report found more than half of workers (52%) are present but not particularly excited about their job.  Another 18% are actively disengaged.  If having disengaged employees concerns you, data like this tells you it may be time to worry.

According to the University of Phoenix survey, 90% of working adults report that they had career plans when they were younger. Of those, nearly three-quarters (73%) say that they are not currently in the careers they had planned when they were younger.  Among those who had career plans when they were younger, women (77%) are more likely than men (68%) to report that they are not currently in the careers they had planned.

Those with college degrees are more likely to have followed their anticipated career path. Seventy-nine percent of working adults without Bachelor’s degrees who had career plans when they were younger are not currently working in those careers, compared with 63% of their counterparts who do have Bachelor’s degrees or higher levels of education.

It is not necessarily better at the top. Only 20% of business owners say they are in their dream careers, while 16% of C-level executives say they are.

What keeps working adults from seeking the jobs they wish they had?

More than half (57%) cite a lack of financial security, and 37% believe they lack the proper education or experience. Fully 40% want to change careers but literally have no idea what other careers they want to change to.

Nearly one-third (32%) fear the unknown, and 31% consider themselves to be too advanced in age or in their current positions to change careers now. Forty-three percent of those without Bachelor’s degrees identify lack of adequate education/experience as a barrier, which is significantly higher than those with Bachelor’s degrees or more (26%).

The data above tells us something not very positive about peoples’ attitudes towards their current jobs. If we believe that our organizations are only as good as the level of commitment and engagement our employees feel in their work, it suggests that HR—no one else should be trusted with the role—may have to get more deeply involved in one of its more distasteful responisibilities. Presume for a moment that these numbers apply to your employees. Presume that a majority of them want to change careers but have no plans to do so, and a substantial minority of them are staying put because they lack even an idea of what else they would like to do.

Maybe it suggests that HR needs to actively help these individuals out of their current jobs, by whatever legal and ethical means necessary.

Source: University of Phoenix; www.phoenix.edu, CNBC.com

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