New survey reveals disconnects between what employers offer and what workers need

Report: Findings from Transamerica Institute show employers are grappling with workforce issues

May 2, 2023

“Employers are grappling with workforce issues ranging from attracting and retaining talent to productivity, flexibility, and return-to-work policies,” Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of Transamerica Institute and its Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS), says in a statement.

Catherine Collinson, president & CEO, Transamerica Institute (Photo: TI)

Collinson continues, “In today’s rapidly evolving environment, many are reevaluating their business practices and benefit offerings, but the question is whether they are in sync with employees’ needs.”

The survey – Stepping Into the Future: Employers, Workers, and the Multigenerational Workforce – evaluates responses from more than 1,800 for-profit employers in the U.S. and more than 5,700 workers.

Highlights include:

Among employers, 69% cite one or more concerns about workforce-related issues and 61% reexamined their benefit offerings last year.
In 2022, 70% of employers implemented one or more beneficial measures for their employees, while 46% implemented cost-cutting measures.
The most often cited beneficial measures include increased salaries/wages (33%), increased bonuses (27%), implemented/enhanced employee work-life balance programs (25%), and implemented/enhanced health care benefits (24%).
Four in 10 employers note varying degrees of difficulty recruiting new employees.
Most employers feel very or somewhat responsible for helping their employees with various aspects of their health and financial well-being.
More than nine in 10 employers (96%) believe they are supporting their employees achieve work-life balance while fewer workers (75%) indicate their employers are helpful in supporting them achieve work-life balance.
Most workers have a positive outlook on life, including being generally happy (84%) and having a strong sense of purpose in life (79%). However, a number of workers are experiencing distress, including often feeling unmotivated and overwhelmed (43%) and having trouble making ends meet (43%).

“Employers have an opportunity to increase their understanding of employees’ needs,” says Collinson – noting the survey reveals gaps between what employer offerings and worker perspectives.

She adds, “Employers play a vital societal role by providing employment, employee benefits, supportive business practices, and the ability for workers to save and invest for retirement.”

“By stepping up and seeking out beneficial ways to further support their employees, employers could improve outcomes for current and future members of the workforce. By doing so, they could also improve outcomes for themselves in terms of innovation, productivity, and competitiveness in the marketplace.”

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.