Almost 60% of Australian casual workers feel disengaged at work

Humanforce, a Sydney based global provider of workforce management solutions, has found that Australian employers could be doing much more to engage their casual workforces.

In a survey conducted by Humanforce it was revealed that only 42% of Australian casual employees have felt engaged in their work.

Humanforce Founder and MD, Bruce Mackenzie, said the survey demonstrated employers could be doing a lot more to engage and motivate their casual workforce.

“We know that engaged employees take significantly less days off and are much more productive as it’s been proven time and time again,” said Bruce. “While many employers have recognised this by putting strategies in place for their permanent employees, many are overlooking the importance of engagement when it comes to their casual employees, which is not sustainable considering Australia has one of the highest numbers of casual workers in the world.”

The OECD Employment Outlook 2019 showed that 25% of workers in Australia are casual, of which more than half report having no guaranteed hours. The Humanforce survey reflected the fact that guaranteed hours is a challenge for many casual workers, with 60% of respondents saying guaranteed shifts was the most important driver in selecting a casual employer.

Yet, 75% of respondents also stated that flexibility of days and hours, as well as fitting around family commitments (43%) were the main attractions of casual work, illustrating that while casual workers might want the same number of shifts each week, employers may need to be open to these being changeable rather than standardised week to week.

There are a number of ways in which employers can better engage casual workers and create a sense of community, with the below showing the percentage of survey respondents who view these actions as important to them:

• A positive and fun work culture – 54%
• Wage incentives – 52%
• Group training and learning opportunities – 52%
• Employee rewards – 45%
• An employer that shows an interest in you – 42%
   

Casual work is often subject to high turnover, and as the survey found, many casual workers (40%) move to permanent work. Therefore, employers need to do everything they can to build staff loyalty and reduce turnover when faced with a limited pool of available talent.

Workforce management solutions can help employers to better engage with casual employees by providing a real time view of all employees that helps to measure engagement and offer employee rewards, as well as facilitate ongoing communications such as employee feedback, events and training opportunities.

Technologies such as workforce management solutions are something that 74% of survey respondents would be open to their employer using.

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