Trends in business administration and support
UK businesses continue to face immense pressures – worker retention is a key solution
The UK’s overall job vacancy rate continues to trickle down, falling from well above 1,000,000 open positions in 2023 to 908,000 by end of February 2024. This and other statistics would appear to indicate an improving jobs market, with the number of unemployed per vacancy increasing to 1.6 persons (Dec ’23 to Feb ’24) compared to 1.4 persons in the previous quarter. However, as always, details count. Some occupation sectors are faring better than others and these headline statistics do not reflect the true situation for business professionals. The fact is, vacancies for business administration and support roles have been rising for the past four years, as organisations struggle to hire the skilled workers who keep manufacturing and service industries running at capacity. There are 26% more vacancies for business professionals now than there were prior to the pandemic, and there are simply not enough accounts, payroll, secretarial, clerical and HR candidates to meet demand – especially for entry-level and low to middle management roles.
Source: Manpower Q2 2024
Source: ONS April 2024.
Exacerbating the challenges, other workforce issues, such as an increasing number of the UK population becoming economically inactive and rising employee expectations of work, are combining with the highly competitive nature of the jobs market for business professionals. The outcome is a squeeze on businesses, as organisations find themselves stuck between high demand for admin and support staff, a shrinking pool of experienced workers, and many school and college leavers lacking the necessary skills for work. Instead of recruiting to grow their business, many organisations must now expend valuable time and energy simply backfilling vacancies created by employees leaving the job market or departing for pastures new. Worker retention has seldom been more crucial.
With a national talent shortage that is not going away anytime soon and more demand for business admin and support workers than ever before, employee retention takes precedence over recruitment. UK organisations must use every tool available to keep the employees they already have. Pay is clearly one of those tools, but with many workers able to pick and choose jobs, it is probably not the most effective. Instead, giving workers what they want from their employment – conditions and job satisfaction – are now more powerful incentives to retain the best talent. But what does that mean? In 2024, what do workers want from work?
Source: New Possible 2024
Retaining and attracting skilled workers comes down to job satisfaction. Providing a positive working environment, offering more flexibility, recognising work well done and creating opportunities for employees to progress their career are imperative and they outrank financial compensation as reasons for employees to stay with or join an organisation.
Maintain a positive working environment
Listen to complaints and act on them decisively and transparently
Provide equal opportunities for career progression
Provide training and learning opportunities to increase or upgrade worker skill sets
Recognise work well done
Offer flexible working and extra benefits wherever possible.
As revealed by the data presented later in this guide, compensation levels by role show little variation across the 12 cities surveyed. Most business leaders are aware of pay rates within their region and by role and few organisations step significantly above or below the common benchmarks. This means pay is a weak attraction tool, as competitors will usually offer the same kind of rates for the same kind of work. However, for retention strategies, pay can play a bigger role:
Use enhanced compensation to reward top performing workers. When employees can see their work is recognised and rewarded, they have more incentive to stay.
Keep the financial demarcations between employee roles clear. This means maintaining a worthwhile ‘pay gap’ between roles – such as between a clerical assistant, payroll clerk and an office manager. Also be aware that the recent rise in the National Living Wage could have ‘blurring’ side effects for some higher paid workers – those who did not benefit from the NLW increase because their pay was already slightly above the threshold. Increasing NLW pay without maintaining the necessary pay gap between NLW level workers and their superiors runs the risk of demotivating key line managers and experienced personnel.
