The Top 3 Employee Needs Employers Need to Meet in 2023

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Employers that want to recruit and retain employees this year need to focus on meeting their needs and solving their biggest concerns. Many leaders are completely disconnected from the struggles that employees have because they aren’t experiencing the same hardships. Employees are losing sleep over their decline in satisfaction at work and their compensation, benefits, and career needs haven’t been met. When employees’ needs aren’t met, they don’t have the adequate mental and emotional bandwidth to be a highly productive contributors to your organization.

Employees are still feeling the effects of global crisis, including the Covid-19 pandemic, a war in Europe, inflation, political and social unrest, and layoffs. As a result of these larger trends, employees are now much more focused on their well-being and their achievement at work. Mercer’s 2022 Inside Employees’ Minds study found that 36 percent of employees considering leaving their employers because of their financial insecurity from inflation, declining sense of work-life balance, and continued burnout and concerns with their mental health. If your company can help employees meet these needs, you will gain a productive, highly committed workforce — and forge a path to a truly differentiated employer value proposition.

There are three big employee needs covered in the study that employers should address this year if they want to ensure their workforce is engaged, satisfied, and productive.

1. Financial security and retirement benefits

Inflation has been driving the cost of living up and even though it has leveled off recently , high prices of goods could prolong. While wages have increased, they aren’t keeping up with inflation , which has caused employees to be worried that they don’t have financial security, nor will be able to save money for retirement, since their income is mostly used to pay for food, transportation, and rent. As a result, the report found that employees' biggest concern is covering their monthly expenses, followed by their ability to retire, both of which were ranked much lower at ninth and fifth in their 2021 study.

The demographic that has been most affected is low-wage earners who make less than $60,000 each year. One-third of them have taken on additional work to supplement their income. With more work, comes more stress, less work-life balance, and potentially lower quality of work and productivity too. We’ve seen remote workers take on multiple jobs at the same time to make ends meet over the past year as well. As for high-income earners making more than $200,000 a year, an entire 70 percent of them are financially stressed due to market volatility and inflation. A separate study by LendingClub found that nearly half of six-figure earners are living paycheck to paycheck.

With all workers impacted in one way or another, employers need a multi-pronged strategy that addresses the financial health of their workforce. First, they need to prioritize living wages for their employees so they feel confident they can cover their monthly expenses, allowing them to focus on their work without chronic worrying. Second, they need to focus on affordable healthcare since it’s getting more costly, with an expected 5.6 percent increase this year. Third, they need to invest in and support holistic financial well-being, which addresses the needs of employees at every stage of life including providing access to financial planners and financial education. Finally, employers need to assist with retirement readiness by communicating more regularly about their plans and teaching spending management.

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