Findings from Tigerhall x Circles.Life’s Daily Poll: Five Employee Trends and What It Means for Stakeholders

Earlier this year, Tigerhall partnered with Daily Poll on the Circles.Life app to design a series of interactive polls for the telco’s users on the topic of adulting. While it was a light-hearted poll that quizzed respondents on issues such as work, career and personal development, the findings give us an insightful bird’s eye view into the expectations and pain points that employees today face. The responses touched upon some of the key components of employee engagement, including bosses, growth opportunities, L&D resources and more.

Tigerhall worked with Daily Poll by Circles.Life to get deeper insights on how people feel about topics relating to employee engagement

To provide some context, there were no “right or wrong” questions in this campaign. Rather, participants answered situational questions related to adulting life by selecting an option that was the most familiar to them. 

One question, for instance, asked participants what the toughest part of their jobs was. Options included the usual suspects: crazy clients, difficult colleagues, horrible bosses or the actual work itself.  

I’ve picked out some of the key stats and findings from the campaign that could be helpful and actionable, whether you are a professional trying to upgrade yourself, a HR practitioner who is trying to improve employee experience, or team leaders looking to engage subordinates more effectively.

1. Bosses make or break employee experience

What’s a conversation about work without the mention of bosses? Findings from numerous polls shed light on the type of bosses that are respected in the workplace and the impact superiors have on employees. One poll quizzed respondents on the type of boss they would prefer to work for. Three in four respondents voted for a nurturing boss, significantly dwarfing the second-most selected option, which was a smart boss (16.6%). 

Bosses were also the most selected option in a poll investigating the main reason people leave their jobs. 35.8% of respondents indicated that having a horrible superior was the number one driver of their decision to quit.

2. Office culture, bad bosses and lack of growth are some of the key factors behind resignations

The least selected option behind people’s decision to quit was the excessive workload (5.2%). In addition to having a horrible superior as covered in the previous point, there are a couple of other key factors that drive employees out of the door. More than three out of 10 respondents cited a bad office culture as the main reason behind their resignation, while 27% of respondents shared that they would quit if they don’t enjoy the job. 

While the earlier statistics enlightened us on the reasons why people quit, another poll highlighted WHEN employees decide that enough is enough. More than four in 10 respondents picked out a lack of growth as an indicator that it’s time to leave, while feeling burnt out was also highlighted as another triggering factor (23%). Other options selected include a clash of values (16.3%)  between employee and work, and the disliking of people (18.7%) in the workplace.

3. Crazy clients and difficult colleagues among some of the pain points identified by employees

Responses to a poll on what people found to be the most difficult part of their jobs were more or less distributed statistically. Almost three in 10 respondents highlighted crazy clients as the toughest aspect of their job in addition to difficult colleagues (26.9%), the actual work itself (23.2%) and a horrible boss (21.2%).

4. Silence seems to be golden during conflicts with colleagues

So how do people usually deal with colleagues that they don’t like? Nothing, as cited by more than half of the respondents. Only one in four respondents shared that they would have a calm conversation with the particular colleague, while 13.1% do not know what to say during such situations. A minority of respondents (9.6%) indicated that they would trash things out with brutal honesty.

5. A stark mismatch in learning resources provided

More than three out of five respondents highlighted that their company’s learning platform does not meet their day to day needs — an alarming trend considering that a lack of training and opportunities to learn have often been identified as a contributing factor to employees quitting. 72.3% of respondents also shared that they do not enjoy the learning platforms that they are provided with.

There are plenty more statistics from where that came from, but I picked out the five most actionable trends that I felt would be useful for the different stakeholders of the workplace. I’d like to distill the trends above even further and what it means to some of us reading this article:

For mid-level managers and above:

• You are one of the main drivers behind employees staying or leaving
• Pay attention to your teams —  subordinates value your desire to help them grow rather than how smart you are
• Encourage your subordinates to strike a healthy work life balance. Burnout is unfortunately a common occurrence in the workplace today, and as we found out, a contributing factor to a resignation

For HR practitioners:

• Emphasis on work life balance and employees’ wellbeing will go a long way in retaining your people
• In addition to job specific training, focus on equipping employees with softer skills such as managing difficult clients, coping with tough bosses and dealing with colleagues 
• Employees have different pain points and requirements. Taking a bottom-up approach when designing learning programmes can help you to understand the skills gaps that people on the ground face
• It’s important that we cater to the consumer habits of the millennial-dominated workforce today by providing learning materials that are succinct, actionable and can be accessed on demand

For professionals in general:

• Push for regular checkpoint and feedback sessions with your superiors. Your growth in the company involves both parties
• Soft skills are as important as job-specific skills. Managing clients, bosses and colleagues take up more time and resources than we often realise
• Make your learning requirements heard regularly

To end this article, I’d also like to share some of my favourite Tigerhall Podcasts and Power Reads that are relevant to the trends and findings in this article:

• Fuel Your Brain: Unlock the Power of Learning, by Grace Yip, Head of HR ASEAN at Accenture
• De-Escalating Conflicts During Intense Situations, by Ted Osius, VP of Public Policy APAC at Google and former US Ambassador to Vietnam
• How to Earn and Keep the Trust of Your Team, by Yvonne Lim, Regional Head of Innovation Hubs at Accenture
• Making Your Employees Feel Valued, by Reynold D’Silva, SVP Data & Marketing Solutions at Gojek
• What to Do If You Have The Boss From Hell, by David Dahan, CEO of WPP @ Unilever
• Reading Clients in a Sales Meeting, by Simon Tate, SVP and COO Greater China at Salesforce
• Getting Colleagues on the Same Page, by Babul Balakrishnan, Head of Customer Experience APAC at DHL eCommerce
• When Your Annoying Remote Colleague Is Ignoring You, by Nissan Joseph, former MD APAC at Crocs
• How Do You Get Everyone to Align With a Culture?, by Frank Koo, Head of Asia, Talent & Learning Solutions at LinkedIn
• Mix It Up: The Need for Culture Change, by Namrata Jolly, former Head of Customer & Digital at Prudential