This year, the number of professional respondents increased from 20,504 in 2020 to 24,053. Universum Global's survey is revealing, not only for uncovering the most attractive employers, but also for unpacking key market insights about the ever-changing employment landscape in the country.
The survey includes 48 industries over 50 different occupational groups.
The change in the number of considered employers has shifted throughout the years and business/commerce is leading the pack in terms of employer choices. Interest in searching for a career in education, however, has reduced, as has health/medicine. This reveals that the industries demonstrating growth are the ones experienced hires feel would fulfil their current career trajectories.
Although LinkedIn is the frontrunner for online usage in finding information about employer brands and information, the employers’ career websites and corporate websites are still relevant in finding the most up-to-date, credible insights.
WhatsApp ranks highly for information sharing and it emerged that it is considered important to keep hires’ online presence up-to-date and engaging thus having this medium to communicate effectively and quickly.
The biggest players in the social space include (among others). The top five of each are as follows:
These answers emerged as written in by respondents. In the word clouds below, the bigger the box, the more frequently the word was mentioned by the respondents as being most engaging employer brand on social media. The below is ranked according to the various Main Fields of Occupation.
Many respondents indicated that, while engaging with talent is important, another important factor is understanding current talent’s satisfaction within their main fields of occupation. These are scaled answers, ranked from 1 – 10 on how satisfied current talent feels within their industry:
As the industries are analysed more deeply, specific industries emerge as forerunners in the satisfaction stakes. This is likely to encourage staff to be promoters of the brands in question. The frontrunner is still computer software, with e-commerce growing in the wake of the pandemic in terms of recommendations.
The desire to change employers correlates with professionals looking to leave their current workplace within the next six months. This impacts trust in general within an organisation and the following should be taken into account.
While keeping with the trend, it’s apparent that, over the years, the need to change employers within six months has increased steadily. Trust in organisational leadership has improved, however, there is still room for more improvement. And many respondents noted their trust in leadership helped them determine more readily whether or not to leave their current employers.
62% of the respondents would prefer to work for an organisation founded in South Africa – an encouraging statistic, as the country rebuilds its economy following the pandemic.
With that, here are the 20 Most Attractive Employers of 2021 in the Business/Commerce Main Field of Occupation:
For further insights or to gain access to the full Professional Awards report for 2021, visit https://universumglobal.com/.