The world of STEM has rapidly expanded over the past decade, and the last two years have only accelerated that growth. While the STEM market continues to hit new highs, the job market continues to experience shortages, similarly to other industries.
At present, STEM sectors are faced with a separate issue from their management of unprecedented growth – how will companies adapt and improve their talent sourcing strategies to adequately maneuver the new job market? To truly reach as wide of a pool of talent as possible, employers will need to begin rethinking their talent outreach and engagement to begin redefining their own unique employee experience.
Employee Engagement as a Tool
Many employers have focused on the impact of the Great Resignation and ongoing job shortages, but understanding the underlying causes and the new employee mindset is equally important. A Gallup study found that only 34 percent of employees in the US are actively being engaged.1 The study also found that employees with the highest quit rates are not currently being engaged by employers.2
These findings seem to reflect a disconnect between employees’ idea of the employee experience and employers’; while many employees’ perspectives on employee experience have evolved rapidly in the past two years, many employers’ perspectives have stagnated. To adequately adapt to these market shifts, employers must begin optimizing their employee engagement processes to keep employees fulfilled, skilled, and successful while effectively increasing candidate attraction.
Optimizing Your Employee Engagement Practices
Take steps to expand your employee engagement by updating your talent outreach processes, hiring processes, and workplace flexibility. These optimizations will positively impact your company’s profitability, success, and employee retention.
Sourcing talent from a wider, global talent pool enables employers to engage employees from diverse backgrounds and create a workplace culture with DE&I values. A McKinsey study found that diverse companies are 36 percent more profitable than their non-diverse peers.3
Establish new talent pipelines for your company with referrals and remote or hybrid work options; engaged employees will refer skilled, like-minded candidates. A study also found that 55 percent of employees are searching for work that offers three days a week of remote work.4
Streamline onboarding and hiring processes to reduce time-to-hire and ensure employees have a positive, referenceable hiring experience. Sixty-eight percent of employees who have a positive experience with onboarding are likely to remain at the company for three years.5
Adapting to a Decade of Potential Worker Shortages
The remote work-era revisions to workers’ views on the employee experience, the workplace, and the world of work are likely to become the status quo. While the worker shortages of many industries are expected to balance out over the next decade, worker shortages in the STEM sector pre-date the past two years.
The STEM sector is already predicted to experience a worker shortage of 3.5 million workers by 2025.6 To effectively get ahead of the competition and strengthen your workforce, start taking steps to improve your employee engagement. As a result, you’ll begin to redefine your workplace culture and create a positive employee experience that’s attractive to both employees and potential candidates.
Want to learn more about the ways you can update your employee experience and improve employee engagement? AllSTEM has the experience and resources to help strengthen your workforce today. Learn more at www.allstemconnections.com.
[1] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/321725/gallup-q12-meta-analysis-report.aspx
[2] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/351545/great-resignation-really-great-discontent.aspx
[4] https://www.zippia.com/advice/hybrid-work-statistics/
[6] https://www.emerson.com/en-us/news/corporate/2018-stem-survey
