Employees’ overwhelming view is they are being held back from developing their career

Half (49 percent) of UK workers believe their current job offers little to no chance for career progression and out of 1,000 UK workers asked about the state of their career progression including the prospects for advancement, not one felt they had the right level of support from managers. The survey by Qualtrics claims that just 7 percent believe there is a great deal of opportunity to progress their career in their organisation. It’s a marked difference from October 2017, when the number of employees saying they had a significant opportunity for career progression was 17 percent. The research suggests the pessimistic outlook could be down to a lack of acknowledgment and support at work. Of those claiming to have little or no opportunities for career progression, the data found that 71 percent are given little to no change to trying out new things that interest them, all of them (100 percent) say they don’t receive the right level of support from managers and 49 percent rarely receive consistent acknowledgement for doing good work.

Commenting on the findings, Jack Davies, Head of Content EMEA, Qualtrics, said, “It’s clear a large percentage of the UK working population does not feel valued by their employers and feel they are being held back in developing their career.

“To keep employees engaged and motivated, organisations need to providing opportunities to develop and grow, otherwise people will simply look elsewhere for those opportunities. The employee experience is vital to the success of an organisation – happy employees deliver great products and services to happy customers and are the cornerstone of a successful brand.

“If employees are stagnating in their roles it can affect their engagement, motivation and ultimately their ability to deliver for the organisation. Business leaders need to listen and act on employee feedback to make sure they address these issues and hold on to their best people.”