According to research out today by Adecco, 70% of employees have considered leaving their jobs in the past year, with one in five FTSE employees registering with a recruiter, compared to 1 in 10 non-listed respondents.

Despite gloomy forecasts of the job market for the year ahead, it seems that employees still continue to have itchy feet.

Employee trends
The FTSE Worker survey, which questioned over 1,000 UK employees across different businesses (500 workers from FTSE 350 businesses), also reveals that 61% of employees desire a bigger pay packet.

Yet, while four in 10 admit that it's more difficult to get a better job than a year ago, chief marketing officer, Claire Darley of Adecco Group UK & Ireland says: "There's still a degree of confidence that employees want to be behind the driving seat of their career."

Company shares
The research also found that 40% of FTSE workers do not have shares either gifted or offered at a favourable rate. While company shares were often held up as the holy grail of showing it valued its employees, 60% of those that are offered shares say they have little or no impact on their commitment to the business.

Fresh approach
Employers need to be alert and look differently at how they manage their workforce by taking a fresh approach at how they recruit, adds Darley. Internal mentoring is a key motivational factor in retaining employees with 37% stating their business runs a mentoring scheme which gives them a good reason to remain in their post.

Timescales
Darley reminds employers that recruitment has grown dramatically in the last 10 years, and employees are working to quicker recruitment timescales. Don't forget that on average, employees look to change their jobs every three years. She says: "If employees are having a bad day at work, they can flirt with the idea of changing their jobs, spend 30 minutes searching and registering for jobs during their lunchbreak and could find themselves a new position quite quickly."

Senior managers
However at the top end of the career scale, 55% of senior managers report they are happy with their career opportunities, and 60% satisfied with their salary. Though senior managers are four times as likely to join a recruitment agency over the past year than their non-management colleagues due to boredom.  

Tighten up your recruitment
So while the labour market could tighten up, it seems on the recruitment front, employees are still going to be on the lookout for challenging and satisfying roles. It's up to employers to meet that demand by making sure they spend more time getting to know their candidates to ensure the right 'cultural fit' and conducting employee satisfaction surveys to find out the company's key motivational drivers for retention or working out what needs to be improved upon.