A new report explores the effects of training and different management styles on work retention, quiet quitting and motivation at work.
As Europe strives to become more competitive, one of the biggest challenges is tackling skills shortages faced by many sectors. According to European Commission (EC) reports, the construction, healthcare, ICT, engineering and mathematics sectors are particularly affected by this lack of competent staff (see SwissCore article). To this end, the re-elected EC President, Ursula von der Leyen, called for a stronger Erasmus+ programme, especially in vocational education and training, to address this major challenge in her political guidelines (see SwissCore article).
To better address this issue, the EC has recently published a report looking at the reasons for the loss of skills in organisations. The report starts with the observation that when employees leave a company, they take their human capital with them: the investment and training that the organisation has made goes with them, along with their skills, abilities, attitudes and knowledge. Although turnover is the main cause of underprovision of training in organisations, it is not always seen by employers as a threat to human capital investment: even if skills leave the company, new recruits bring with them the training that has been done in other organisations. One of the main tasks of the employer is to valorise these skills and to ensure that they are used efficiently in the workplace in order to minimise the loss of skills.
Based on data collected for the European Company Survey 2019 (ECS 2019), which covers European companies with 10 or more employees, the authors of the survey categorise each company in one of the following four groups based on employment relationships: 1) balanced low emphasis on human capital with low frequency of motivational levers (considered here as the reference group), 2) balanced moderate requirements with moderate incentives, 3) unbalanced high requirements with moderate incentives, and 4) balanced high emphasis on workers’ skills and attitude with high incentives. The responses to the questionnaire allowed five parameters to be estimated: i) the incidence of training provision, ii) the incidence of the on-the-job training provision, iii) the degree of difficulty in retaining employees, iv) the excessive incidence of sick leave, and v) the workplace morale.
The study finds that companies in group 4 tend to provide training and on-the-job training to a higher percentage of employees compared to the companies in group 1. This often results in fewer problems with employee retention, lower sick leave rates, and high morale in the workplace. Companies with a high emphasis on human capital and high incentives are the only group with a lower risk of quiet quitting (defined as the withdrawal of work effort). Organisations categorised in groups 2 and 3, both with moderate incentives, fall between groups 1 and 4. Employees are still being trained and their morale is generally high too.
Although getting employees to value their knowledge and attitude is a good first step in reducing withdrawal behaviour, job design choices and management styles play an important role in the employment relationships. Some job design characteristics have an impact on employee motivation: autonomous work is associated with lower turnover and a lower risk of quiet quitting, while a high incidence of problem solving is associated with higher workplace morale and participation in on-the-job training. Managers are important in this motivational scheme, as they can support staff in embarking on new training and their style can create an environment in which motivation increases.