A fifth of employees are unhappy with their jobs

About one in three believe that they are not well-trained for the digital economy.

Workers in Hong Kong are amongst the Asia Pacific's unhappiest with 23% saying that they are unhappy. Amongst factors that make them unsatisfied with their jobs are compensation (22%), work/life balance (14%) and lack of career prospects in the face of digitalisation (13%), according to the IDC survey by Workday.

Over three quarters (81%) of employees are willing to change jobs given the right opportunity whilst 25% are thinking of leaving their jobs within a year. These employees are willing to find a new job that will give them better pay and reward (26%), better career prospect (19%), and better work/life balance (14%), the study revealed.

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About three in ten respondents (30%) believe that their employers are not doing enough to upskill them for digitalisation. More than half (55%) felt that their managers and employers are not proactively engaging employees.

“The digital economy is driving a dichotomy in the talent market: retention challenges and reskilling needs,” the study found.

According to the findings, the war for talent has created more career opportunities for employees with the relevant digital skills. The digitalisation also poses a call for the government and employers to help workers to stay on track through investment in reskilling around the region.

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“The more confident workers are about having the necessary digital skill sets to meet the challenges of the future workplace, the more likely they are planning to leave their current company within a year,” Workday Asia Pacific president David Hope commented.

“Employers should make the effort to share their digitalisation plans with staff they hope to develop, provide them with relevant skills and compensate them accordingly for their new roles or risk losing them to competitors,” he said, adding that many research studies have revealed that the cost of hiring new employees is higher than developing existing staff and paying them more for their expanded skill set.

“Every growing enterprise must become a ‘digital native’ in the way its executives and employees think and act, to challenge digital disruptors and become successful players in the digital economy, or may not survive,” research director Daniel-Zoe Jimenez explained.

The survey was conducted in 2018 amongst 1,404 employees coming from New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. Respondents consisted of professionals, clerical workers, service and sales workers, legislators, and senior officials.