In Quest For Top Talent, Pay Can Only Get You So Far, New Study Shows

The era of the empowered employee is showing no sign of waning.

An annual study published this week by Randstad, the world’s largest employment agency, found that for the first time in the survey’s more than two-decade history, workers are prioritizing “work-life balance” over pay when it comes to choosing the right job.

Despite a challenging economic landscape across many of the 35 countries in which Randstad conducted its research, the company found that a new “workplace baseline” had emerged: A set of expectations that workers are unwilling to compromise on.

Almost half—or 45%—of the more than 26,000 respondents said that they had already campaigned for better conditions at work. Some 44% said that they had at some point even gone so far as to quit their job because of what they deemed to be a toxic work environment. That represents a staggering 11 percentage point rise over the proportion of respondents who said so last year.

“Many expected the challenging economic conditions of 2024 to temper talent expectations,” commented Randstad CEO Sander van ‘t Noordende. But this year’s survey, he added, actually shows that the opposite has occurred. “We have seen a new baseline established with talent continuing to hold multifaceted expectations,” van ‘t Noordende said.

Corroborating other recent research showing that workers are being drawn to employers who share their values and preferences, the Randstad research found that almost a third—29%—said that they had already quit a role because they didn’t agree with the viewpoints or stances of their employers’ leadership. And some 48% said that they wouldn’t accept a job if the company didn’t share their social and environmental values. Almost the same proportion—43%—admitted that they had considered resigning because of their employer’s stance on political issues.

Bhushan Sethi, a partner at Strategy&—PwC’s strategy consulting business—and an adjunct professor at The Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University, in a LinkedIn post recently wrote that beyond shared values, employee expectations around their wellbeing at work are changing, too.

“Employee health and wellbeing is now seen as the number one driver in attracting talent,” he wrote. “It’s a massive risk for companies and economies that don’t get this right.” Unwilling to take that risk, research published this month by the World Economic Forum shows that for many companies, employee well-being is already top of mind. Almost two-thirds of employers the WEF surveyed said that they expect supporting employee health and well-being to be a top focus for talent attraction this year.

Changing Demands

The Randstad research echoes similar studies that have recently shown that pay can only go so far when it comes to winning over top talent.

And amid ongoing demands from major corporations for employees to come back into the office full-time, a study published this month by the Pew Research Center found that a huge swathe of workers would rather quit than comply.

Pew found that among employed adults who have a job that can be done from home, two thirds are working remotely at least some of the time. Nearly half of workers in that group (46%) said that if their employer no longer allowed them to work from home, they would likely leave. Women, workers under the age of 50, and workers who at the time of being questioned were working from all the time, were mostly likely to say that they would quit.

The latest Randstad report showed that workers were most likely to want to work from the office three days a week which jars with what’s currently mandated. According to the respondents’ reported company policies, 31% of employers want employees in the office full-time, with less than a third expecting people to come in on three or fewer days of the week.

“For today’s talent, the significance of work is complex and needs to be personalized,” said van ‘t Noordende. “They are setting the terms on what truly matters to them as individuals and within their communities. Successful businesses are those that will adapt and adjust to this new talent baseline.The solution lies in empowering our key resource: people.”