Employee morale and loyalty are vulnerable as companies ask over-stretched employees to do more with less

Companies should be careful that they are not paving the way for a mass exodus of talent once more favorable economic conditions return and the job market strengthens, says PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) following a new survey.

Managing Tomorrow's People explores the work aspirations and expectations over the next decade of 5,000 professionals worldwide. The results show that, while having vastly more responsibility with a salary to match is what the biggest proportion (44%) want from their careers, over a third (36%) now choose better work-life balance as their prime objective, other than salary.

Other than salary, the survey finds that people value flexible working arrangements by far the most (39%) followed by bonuses, paid academic training and exposure to advanced networking and social activities.

There are interesting regional differences. The appetite for flexible working arrangements is greatest in Western Europe and North America. Employees in Latin America have by far the greatest appetite for learning and development. The desire for exposure to networking and social activities is significantly higher in the ‘newer’ markets of Africa, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Asia Pacific. Only 9% of respondents globally said a good company pension plan was a prime attraction for them.

When they imagine their future working lives, more people picture themselves working in a virtual place, where employees log on from any location, than they do from centralized hubs in major city centers. Perhaps surprisingly, it is the 16-25 year old bracket alone where a majority imagine an ‘office block’ in a city centre as their future workplace.

Respondents were clear about their ideal future employer. Almost half say they want to work for a company whose values match their own. Exactly a third say that they themselves are their own ideal future employer and the remaining 20% want to work for an elite company that employs only the best.

Having a powerful social conscience intrinsic to the organization’s brand and a ‘green’ sense of responsibility was seen as important by 41% of respondents. (This figure was a high as 55% in Latin America). In CEE a higher proportion believed it will be more important to harness the power of social networking and one in four globally believed it was more important to understand emerging markets. From North America there was a significantly higher response to the importance of emerging markets than there was from Western Europe.