Are You an Overwhelmed Employee? New Research Says Yes.

We just completed one of the largest-ever studies of corporate talent and HR needs around the world — the Deloitte 2014 Human Capital Trends Study. The results are startling: businesses around the world struggle to adapt the needs of the 21st century workforce.

Among the twelve challenges we uncovered, one of the biggest is what we call "the overwhelmed employee" — dealing with the flood of information, text messages, tweets, emails, meetings, and conference calls every day.

Our research shows, for example, that people now check their cell phones almost 150 times a day, which causes distraction, stress, and general reduction in productivity. New research also shows that today's business professionals can only focus for 7 minutes at a time, after which we change windows or check Facebook!

(Look at my email inbox on the right --> )

What does this mean? As you can read in our research, this is a wake up call for us as individuals as well as for business and HR leaders. We need to change the way we live and change the way our organizations work.

Let me highlight some of the key findings from this research.

(The Deloitte 2014 Human Capital Trends study, which surveyed more than 2,500 companies in 90 countries around the world. There are twelve key findings described in detail in the report and an interactive dashboard you can use to view trends and capability gaps by location and industry.)

A few of the top findings:

1. Retention and Engagement Have Become Critical Problems.

Businesses around the world need to "re-engage" and motivate people. All our research shows that a combination of old-fashioned performance management practices (read "The Myth of the Bell Curve" for a great discussion of this topic - over 10,000 comments), lack of talent mobility, low levels of diversity and inclusion, and weak skills in mid-management are causing Millennials and even Boomers to look for new positions. Gallup research says that only 13% of employees worldwide are highly engaged and twice that number are so unhappy they will sabotage their employer!

To make matters worse, those with in-demand skills can now change jobs easily, forcing companies to think “engagement” as a holistic problem, not simply an annual survey. I think the word "retention" is out of date — businesses can't "retain" people, they have to create a magnetic "attraction."

I will be introducing our whole new concept for employee engagement at our IMPACT Research Conference, something we call the "Simply Irresistible Organization(r)."

2. The Issue of The Overwhelmed Employee Looms Large.

The third finding I want to point out is this problem of what we call "The Overwhelmed Employee." Research shows that 40 percent of men work over 50 hours per week and 80 percent of them would like to work less. A young investment banker in London died this year because he worked seven weekends straight (including staying up all night) - and most agree it was the self-induced stress of "keeping up" with the competition that caused the problem.

Mindfulness is hot.

Look at the explosion of interest in Mindfulness, (a major pharma company just put "self awareness" training into its leadership program), a focus on "happiness" and work-life balance (witness the sellout crowds at the Wisdom 2.0 conference), and the articles and blogs about health and wellness at work. Arianna Huffington's new website The Third Metric is her fastest growing property.

Incidentally I just read that an Ohio University report found that in 2010 more than 1500 people were admitted to emergency rooms as a result of over-focusing on their mobile devices. In 2013 a woman in Melbourne fell off a pier while checking Facebook.

People are overwhelmed with the technology in their lives and businesses have not dealt with the problem well. Our research showed that while 67 percent of business leaders cite this as an urgent or very important problem, only 4 percent believe their company has any type of program to help employees manage the flood of work coming their way. It's not even clear who OWNS this problem.

3. Businesses Face A Global Leadership Gap: New Leadership Models Needed.

Let me now mention one of the biggest topics in this study: developing strong leadership. 86% of businesses rate "deepening their leadership pipeline" as urgent or very important, the top rated issue of all.

Not only is leadership a global challenge, it is one of the weakest areas of readiness. Only 15% of the companies in this research feel "fully capable" to develop global leaders and only 5% have a sound program to develop Millennial leaders.

Leadership, retention, engagement, and performance are all connected. As the research shows, when we feel disengaged or overwhelmed at work, much of the problem comes down to the management environment. Are people recognized? Do we each have the opportunity to contribute? Are we evaluated fairly? Do leaders know how to coach, develop, and inspire people?

Our research shows that the qualities of high-performing leaders have changed: today's leaders need to be hands-on, inspirational, creative, and inclusive. Leaders today need to have global awareness and they want accelerated paths to development. And new leaders, people in first and second line roles, need far more development on "how to manage well."

As I have stated many times, when you are promoted from individual contributor to manager, you aren't just changing jobs — you're changing careers. Management is an art, and people learn it over time. Even IBM recently shared with us that they are refocusing their energy on rebuilding skills in first line management as their organization undergoes change.

4. Traditional Management Practices Must Change.

A final point. As I studied these issues over the last year, I uncovered David Rock's amazing research on the science of motivation. What he found is that many of the traditional management practices in business create fear and uncertainty, leading us to think defensively. Performance appraisals, for example, often have a very negative effect on people. (Read our research on why we believe the performance management process in business is broken) Giving people negative feedback and withholding information has the same effect.

We need to rethink many of our traditional management and HR practices and modernize them for our 21st century workplace. We now have the benefit of research, science, and cloud based information processing to understand work like never before. Data now shows us that transparency, trust, empowerment, and learning all play a huge role in individual and organizational success.

Conclusion: HR and Business Leaders are Barely Keeping Up.

We learned a lot through this research (there are 12 detailed findings to review). But a big surprise: throughout this research we found capability gaps within the Human Resources department.

HR organizations around the world are passionately trying to keep up with workforce changes, demographics, globalization, technology, and the new values in society. But they aren't keeping up: research shows that "reskilling HR" is the #3 issue on the minds of leaders and 77 percent of companies rate this urgent or very important.

Look at Talent Analytics, one of the hottest areas in business. Only 14 percent of companies have any ability to readily analyze their workforce to understand why people are leaving, what drives performance, and who would be the best person to hire.

The problem is not just that of HR skills, it's also the need for CEOs and CFOs to understand that investing in people (training, work environment, support, career mobility) is perhaps the most important investment they must make. "People are the product" in nearly every company today — and while many HR teams are certainly not optimized, the solution is not to cut back, but rather to transform and optimize the talent function.

The Epic Challenge: Engaging the 21st Century Workforce

After six months of research I conclude we have an epic challenge ahead. We as workers are going to have to learn how to deal with the "overwhelming" amount of information, distractions, and technology in our lives. We have to learn to slow down, focus ourselves, and prioritize.

HR and business leaders, in turn, have to wake up to the challenge. The workforce of today is not the same workforce from before the recession. People are demanding and expect work to be fun and engaging. We expect our work environment to be "soulful" and enjoyable. And we follow leaders who inspire, coach, and align us.

If you as a business or HR leader want to thrive in the years ahead, you are going to have to learn how to build the Irresistible Organization(r).

Please take the time to read this amazing research — it describes the top 12 talent issues facing businesses around the world. Please share your thoughts and comments — I look forward to hearing from you.

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Josh Bersin writes and researches corporate talent, learning, leadership, and HR best-practices around the world. He is Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and founder of Bersin by Deloitte. You can follow Josh here or on twitter josh_bersin or at www.bersin.com .

Other Recent Articles by Josh Bersin:

* Learning to Be Yourself

* The Myth of the Bell Curve

* What's Good for Women is Good for Business

* How to Make Work Fun

* Why we Do Need The HR Department

* Are Performance Appraisals Doomed?

* How I Hire: Trust Your Gut

* The MOOC Market Takes Off

* Employee Retention: The Time is Now

* The Datafication of HR

Photo: Creativa / shutterstock

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• How Do You Help Employees Thrive? Just Ask., by David Goldberg
• Are You an Overwhelmed Employee? New Research Says Yes, by Josh Bersin
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