Recently published research has highlighted that overtime work increased in 33 percent of businesses across Australia over the last 12-month period. 59 percent of non-award staff were unpaid for their extra hours. Only 13 percent managed to decrease overtime over the past 12 months.
Of those 33 percent of Australian business that increased overtime, 20 percent retained the average weekly additional hours to less than 5 percent. A further 38 percent increased overtime by between 5 and 10 percent, while 33 percent increased it by 10 to 20 percent. The final 9 percent saw overtime rise by more than 21 per cent of the standard weekly hours worked.
The consequences of everything that occurred in 2020 during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic, illustrates that tight budgets have forced employers to try to achieve more with less as they navigated their way through the crisis and back to growth.
An increase of overtime is not a sustainable solution and won’t fix the ongoing problem, especially when there is further pressure being placed on workforces in the year ahead. Almost two-thirds of employers say skills shortages will impact the effective operation of their organisation or department in the next 12 months.
According to employers who were surveyed, the number one impact will be increasing workloads for existing staff, this response was submitted was by 62 percent of employers. This response is a dangerous indicator for employers, who risk their employees’ engagement, retention, and physical and mental health when overtime becomes excessive.
It could be argued that one of the major factors behind today’s skills shortage, is a lack of people gaining the necessary qualifications or experience.
Encouraging more individuals to gain the qualifications and skills in demand and offering apprenticeships, traineeships, graduate programs and entry-level roles can help organisations overcome the skills shortage in the long term and, this will ultimately reduce the amount of pressure on existing teams.
For the time being, employers should aim to revise their sourcing strategy to attract skills in demand whether they wish to add a new permanent team member to relieve the pressure on existing staff or a temporary candidate to assist at times of peak workloads.
It’s also important to offer genuine work-life balance initiatives so that employees can focus on their health and wellbeing after periods of lengthy overtime.
1 In 3 Australians Are Currently Looking For A Career Change
Some of the reason’s workers were keen to look for new positions of employment included; a lack of promotional opportunities at 43 percent and an uncompetitive salary at 39 percent.
In comparison only, 46 percent of respondents admitted that they were satisfied with their current position of employment. 49 percent and 55 per cent of workers reported feeling satisfied with their current employer and direct manager, respectively.
As the new financial year quickly approaches us, often at this time of year traditionally there is fresh activity occurring in the jobs market as new budgets are set and employers look to add to their headcount.
The End of Financial Year similar to the start of the new year is also a seasonal peak time of the year for people to review whether they should stay or change jobs.
For employers, this impending movement of people will add to their staff retention challenges, which are already heightened in response to a gap in salary increase expectations between organisations and their employees.
As a direct consequence of the covid-19 pandemic a large number of professionals feel that their career stagnated over the past 12 months. They put their career plans on hold to help their organisation through the crisis and recover. As Australia recovers from the covid-19 pandemic employees are now starting to focus on their own individual desires as a worker and are once again beginning to prioritise professional growth and the advancement of their career.