- What do the most desirable candidates want from their jobs?
- How do you attract diverse talent in a competitive market?
- How do you retain your most skilful employees?
These are the questions at the centre of Kea Consultants’ 2024 Talent Shift Survey.
This chart shows how, on average, candidate motivations have changed between 2016 and 2024.
For the last fifteen years, Kea Consultants has worked alongside the world’s leading investing firms to find their future talent. In 2016, we were asked ‘why are candidates getting worse?’ In exploring this question, we found not a decline in quality but a widening divide between what candidates wanted from their jobs and what employers were offering – we published these findings as the first Talent Shift Survey.
A lot has changed for us, our clients, and our candidates since then and this has created a widening disconnect between investment firms and their target candidates. Now, in a time post-Brexit and post Covid-19 pandemic, in a time of mass cuts at the banks, as Generation-Z is integrated into the workplace and the ‘Great Resignation’ gives way to the ‘Great Stay,’ we felt it was time to revisit our motivations survey and to identify where this misalignment is originating. Kea surveyed the market and using a sample of ~150 candidates from different professional and personal backgrounds, collated and contextualised their answers to create this report – a guide on how to hire and retain talent in 2024.
Although there were many varied and specific learnings to take away from this report, the three most widely applicable were:
Candidates’ top four professional motivators were the same regardless of background
Not only are this report’s top four motivators consistent across all candidates surveyed in this report, the top five motivations have remained unchanged from the 2016 report:
- Interesting and Challenging Work
- Training and Development
- High Levels of Responsibility
- Remuneration
- Team-Oriented Work
For firms to find success in hiring talent, it is crucial that they demonstrate candidates’ access to these motivators throughout the hiring process and into the role.
Candidates are favouring granular professional factors over cultural ones
This is a somewhat ambiguous split but one which could also be shown in the statement: ‘candidates place significantly more importance on ‘what’ they are doing, rather than ‘how’ they do it’. In contrast to the consistency of the top five motivations, the following seven have all altered in their importance to candidates. It is in this shift that we can see the ramifications of external events on candidates’ prioritisation of professional considerations: is it a surprise that after experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic, candidates are looking for greater Work/Life Balance? Or that in a time of mass cuts, the importance of Secure Employment has significantly increased? Although these could be seen as a nicety over a necessity, showing these other aspects in a role (in addition to the more important factors) may make a difference when closing desirable talent.
Candidates from diverse backgrounds are less likely to be receptive to retention efforts
Women, consultants, and ethnically and socially diverse candidates all reported a higher effort from their employers to retain their talents. Despite this, these candidates are less likely than men, bankers and white candidates to stay at their current place of employment. This does not however mean that employers should give up on their efforts to retain diverse talent but should instead revisit how they are trying to do so. Although retention should be considered on a candidate-to-candidate basis as much as possible, making use of the surveyed trends could help increase the effectivity of retention efforts.
In the eight years between Kea’s reports, the hiring and investing landscapes have been significantly transformed. We want to use this report to close the distance between client and candidate, to help firms highlight the best aspects of their role, and to create opportunities that excite the market and retain top-tier talent. Our consultants will collaborate with funds and use this data to develop robust, efficient and effective hiring processes with positive interviewing experiences on both sides of the table.
For further information, to set up a meeting or to receive the full 30-page report, please contact Dan Thomassen ([email protected]). I am looking forward to conversations on all things data, diversity and how best to attract and retain talent.