Surprising Facts About The Australian Workforce – And What To Keep Your Eyes On In 2019
Australian workplaces, like workplaces worldwide, are changing fast. 2018 was a year in which that evolution ramped up speed. People are now expecting different things from their employers, and companies are updating their approach to fit.
In a survey of the Aussie workforce, SEEK discovered some surprising facts. For instance, the job interview process is riddled with dishonesty – on both sides. Nearly half (42%) of Australians were asked an illegal question in an interview, but a similar amount of people thought that it was OK to lie to your interviewer, and many kept their interviews secret from friends and family.
Health and wellness are growing priorities, with Australians increasingly taking pay cuts for better work-life balance and valuing incentives such as flexible working conditions and extra time off.
Things get a little awkward in the salary department, with expectations and reality heading in different directions. Australians had high expectations for their first career job’s salary, but over half believed they were underpaid and most had never asked for a raise… and had no intentions to.
And finally, a look to the future. According to Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends 2018 Report, Australian employers are set to put extra emphasis on social responsibility, an important factor in keeping staff and clients engaged and happy. Employees are increasingly expecting health benefits from the companies they work for, and collaboration is moving unstoppably toward digital platforms – could this spell the end of face to face meetings?
Well, maybe – as with everything, it depends on where you’re working and the nature of your work, with those changes mostly affecting office and information workers. Then again, we’ll have to keep our eyes open this year. Who knows what changes 2019 might bring?