31. Employees constantly experience income volatility
Income volatility is the unpredictability of wages and salaries received by workers. Their cash flow may fluctuate from month-to-month or year-to-year.
The US Federal Reserve’s 2013 Survey of Household Economics and Decision-making found that 21% occasionally experienced months with unusually high or low incomes. Ten percent said that their income varied quite a bit from month-to-month.
The US Financial Diaries’ study of low- and moderate-income households revealed that households experienced on average five out of twelve months with a change in income of over 25%.
Between 2013 and 2014, JP Morgan Chase Institute observed that 70% of individuals experienced an annual change in income of at least 5% and 26% experienced at least a 30% change. Only 30% saw a consistent income.
The Aspen Institute found that nearly half of all households experienced an income gain or drop of more than 25% over any two-year period. Roughly one-quarter of individuals can expect to see even larger changes – 50% or more – from year-to-year. 40% who reported variable monthly income blamed irregular work schedules for the swings.
Findings from the Urban Institute showed that over 12 months about 25% of families suffered income disruptions. Low-income families with savings are more financially resilient than middle-income families without savings. Those with savings of $2,000 to $4,999 are less likely to experience hardships after income disruptions.
32. Employees suffer from outdated education systems
At present employees are stuck in a post-industrial era with the social engineering of an industrial workforce. Our education systems are generally assembly-line systems that are meant to churn out assembly-line workers for the 20th-century industrialised economy.
Gallup found that just 22% of Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher believed that their education prepared them “well” or “very well” to work with artificial intelligence in the workplace.
As a result, schools have become highly de-personalised institutions. They routinely demand compliance and frequently squelch creativity. Children – bursting with energy, creativity, and excitement – are confined to the spot like battery chickens.
According to The Guardian, teachers are leaving the profession in droves, their training wasted and their careers destroyed by overwork and a spirit-crushing regime of standardisation, testing, and top-d control.
It is reported by the New York Post that our children have been suffering or will suffer by this life-defying, dehumanising system. For every eight hours that students spent in schools, only about 2.5 are spent learning. The rest is wasted on lectures and other non-academic activities.
Unfortunately, the Information Age has facilitated a reinvention of nearly every industry except for education. Education must now do more than just create a factory or assembly-line workers. It must reinvent itself. It must equip our future generations (who will become workers in the future) with the right skills and experience for today’s Information Age, not yesterday’s Industrial Age.
The US Secretary of Education said that “the factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century. Today, our schools must prepare all students for college and careers and do far more to personalise instruction and employ the smart use of technology. Teachers cannot be interchangeable widgets. Yet the legacy of the factory model of schooling is that tens of billions of dollars are tied up in unproductive use of time and technology, in underused school buildings, in antiquated compensation systems, and in inefficient school finance systems.”
33. Employees will fail within 18 months of a new job
With an outdated education system, Leadership IQ said that when graduates do find work, as high as 46% of newly-hired employees will fail within 18 months of starting a new job. Only 19% will achieve unequivocal success.
Contrary to popular belief, technical skills are not the primary reason why new hires fail. Instead, poor interpersonal skills dominate the list (89%). Universities and the outdated education system are not equipping graduates with these critical skills.
34. Employees don’t have relevant work skills
Therefore, smaller employers are shifting away from hiring graduates. News reported that employers believe that graduates are coming out of universities and colleges with no real skills or simply being taught the wrong things.
According to the 2017 Employer Satisfaction Survey of Australian graduates and employers, 25% said that their qualification is “not that important” or “not at all important.” More than half of employers say management, commerce, creative arts, and information technology degrees are not important.
In a survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, students and employers didn’t see eye-to-eye on how well-prepared students were in applying knowledge and skills to the real world. That’s 59% of students versus 23% of employers – a gap of 36%!
The Financial Times has reported that even business schools are becoming irrelevant.
US graduate business schools – once magnets for American and international students seeking a certain route to high incomes – are in crisis. In a survey by MBA Career Services, 30 schools ranked 21 to 50 reported a 42% decrease in recruitment by companies in 2016. In 2015, this same group reported an 83% recruiting increase.
In a nationwide survey of over 1,000 human resources managers and recruiters in the US, 86% reported that they find it challenging to hire the right technical talent. More than half (53%) of all companies hired people who weren’t exactly qualified for the job, according to Fast Company.
35. Less-educated employees are discriminated
MIT’s The Work of the Future report found that, since the 1970s, less-educated employees have seen less and less opportunity in cities, even though many social scientists expected the demands for their services should be increasing.
While education is a pre-requisite for applying for a job, it does not guarantee a job or career.
36. Employees are discriminated by other employees
Employees can discriminate against each other based on personal beliefs. It can relate to age, religion, etc.
Depending on the working environment and the make-up of the workforce, discriminations initiated by colleagues can be severe.
37. Employees are not getting trained for the job
Training is concerned with the acquisition of new skills for workers to carry out their current responsibilities. The goal is to improve performance in the short-term.
Development is about adding value to workers’ existential skill-set and to prepare them for additional job roles and even promotion in the long-term.
It is unfortunate that as employers across the world look for ‘ready-made talent’ instead of training workers to suit their jobs, Pew Research Center found that 35% of US workers say they do not have the required education and training they need to get ahead.
Randstad found that many US employees and employers are not acting for upskilling opportunities. In fact, over a third reported that they have done nothing to upskill in the past 12 months. Upskilling is defined as attending workshops, completing online courses, receiving consultation from a specialist, participating in personal coaching sessions or pursuing further education. Nearly 40% said that their employers have not offered nor paid for anything related to upskilling. Approximately, 40% said they would not arrange for and pay-out of their pocket to upskill themselves.
Randstad’s Workmonitor survey for Q3, 2017 found that 90% of employees worldwide believe that regularly updating their skills and competencies is essential to enhancing their employability. Nearly 91% consider it to be their responsibility to do so.
As a comparison, in Singapore, HRinAsia found that 77% of employees took responsibility for developing their skills using a combination of self-learning and on-the-job experience.
According to the Association for Talent Development, organisations that offer comprehensive training programs have 218% higher income per employee than organisations without formalised training. They also enjoy a 24% higher profit margin than those who spend less on training. Continuing to invest in training and development, even when there are economic downturns, is the smart move.
A lack of training and development at work, as well as stagnant wages, are forcing half of all Australian IT workers to seek employment elsewhere, according to MyBusiness.
38. The half-life of a learned skill is five years
Even if employees do manage to get skilled up either on their or through the support offered by their employers, skill obsolescence is real.
Skill obsolescence is the degree to which employees lacked up-to-date knowledge or skills necessary to maintain effective performance in their current or future work roles. To avoid skill obsolescence, employees must continuously learn new skills, acquire new knowledge, and retrain themselves.
According to John Seely Br and Douglas Thomas, authors of A New Culture of Learning, the half-life of a learned skill is 5 years. What we learned 10 years ago is essentially obsolete. Half of what we learned 5 years ago will become irrelevant.
The authors of The 100-Year Life noted that as employees face employment spanning 60 to 70 years, they expect employers will help them continually reinvent themselves, move from role to role, and find their calling over time. Of the respondents surveyed, 83% say that their employers are shifting to flexible, open career models that offer enriching assignments, projects, and experiences rather than a static career progression. Also, 42% believed that employees will have careers that span five years or less.
Deloitte asked, “What does it mean in a world where careers span 60 years, even as the half-life of learned skills continues to fall to only about five years? In the past, employees learned to gain skills for a career; now, the career itself is a journey of learning.”
People will only need to acquire knowledge in enough amounts just to get the job done and be paid for it. They embark on just-in-time education and learning. Continuous learning will be the key to remaining relevant in the future of work.
39. Employees use only a fraction of their knowledge
Employees use just 38% of their knowledge and expertise at work, according to Starmind. This means that employers are failing to unlock even half of the brainpower of their workforce.
The survey found that 90% of employees want more opportunities to share knowledge and expertise. Three quarters believe that their organisation would benefit from accessing more of their expertise.
More than 6 in 10 respondents feel they could contribute more but don’t know how. What is interesting is that nearly two-thirds say they have knowledge their organisation isn’t aware of or doesn’t capitalise on.
40. Employees’ jobs have use-by dates
Given the current rate of technological change and the half-life of a learned skill, jobs and careers have much shorter use-by dates. According to The Age, every career and job has a ‘use-by’ date.
Lawyers, accountants, and doctors can practice until they drop. That’s in theory at least. They face ‘tripwires’ in their careers that will determine whether they will become well-regarded high flyers or mere journeymen. Lawyers can become partners of law firms within eight or nine years of starting out. This requires significant personal sacrifices.
Unfortunately, many ‘trip wires’ exist long before retirement. If employees don’t make it to the top of their careers by age 40, the climb up the corporate ladder is over.
It is reported by Find the Company that the 40 highest-paid CEOs in the world are under 40.
The irony is that when you are fortunate enough to have climbed the corporate ladder and moved into the corner office, Executives Style notes that “you’ll spend around 70% of your time trying to hold on to your job … you’ll be too busy fighting off everyone else who, just like you, wants the corner office.”
People play the game of office politics to hang on to their jobs to the detriment of those who do not play the game. Perhaps those employees who cannot stomach office politics will be at the disadvantage.