Keeping mid-career employees fully engaged in their jobs is one of the top two challenges facing human resource professionals, and is the biggest problem for which they are least prepared, according to new data from a survey just completed by Sirota Survey Intelligence, specialists in attitude research.

The human resource challenges that are having the most impact on organizations during the next three years, according to the Sirota survey of about 100 HR professionals, include:
• Recruiting talented, experienced and high-potential employees
• Keeping mid-career employees fully engaged in their jobs
• Post-hiring training and mentoring, also known as “onboarding”
• Employees voluntarily leaving their jobs
• The expected wave of Baby Boomers retiring

Among these challenges, human resource professionals say they are least prepared for keeping mid-career employees engaged in their jobs, followed by the expected surge in Baby Boomer retirements.

The challenges human resource professionals say their organizations are most prepared for are: telecommuting workers, accommodating part-time employees and flexible schedules, and recruiting talented employees.

“While companies successfully and aggressively recruit high talent employees, they continue to struggle with their retention,” said Douglas Klein, President of Sirota Survey Intelligence. “In fact, much of management’s difficulty stems from their inattention to the personal and performancerelated needs of these individuals.

“These high talent folks require the same kind of attention that all employees need – a basic sense of equity or fair treatment; a sense of achievement, including a clear mission that they can believe in; available resources (and rewards) and continued development, and finally, a sense of camaraderie. When these three basic elements are lacking, their enthusiasm will wane and they will get restless. While this is true for all employees, the highly mobile ones are in the best position to act on their dissatisfactions,” said Klein.

“As labor markets tighten up in light of expected Baby Boomer retirements and other factors, companies need to aggressively identify the core and variable elements of the employment value proposition as these individuals move through the stages of the employment life cycle with their employers. Having an effective program to measure employee attitudes and take action on the findings is an important place to start,” continued Klein.

According to the survey results:

Challenges Having A Major Impact On Organization
Challenge Now In 3 Years

Recruiting 64% 68%
Keeping mid-career employees engaged 43% 58%
Onboarding 57% 53%
Employees voluntarily leaving 37% 44%
Expected Baby Boomer retirements 22% 38%
Accommodating part-time employees and 24% 33%
flexible work schedules
Accommodating telecommuting workers 13% 18%


Challenges Organizations Are Least Prepared For
Challenge Percent Ill-Prepared For Challenge

Keeping mid-career employees engaged 48%
Expected Baby Boomer retirements 45%
Employees voluntarily leaving 44%
Onboarding 34%
Recruiting 29%
Accommodating part-time employees and 25%
flexible work schedules
Accommodating telecommuting workers 22%