NEWS

The job market, the housing market, and the US economy have undergone significant transformations since 2020, reshaping candidate and employee priorities in 2025. These priorities are important to understand if you are trying to attract and retain key talent to your organization. As the world changes around us, our relationship to our work changes. It is imperative to adjust your talent strategy accordingly in order to retain a competitive edge in the market. Countless conversations with candidates have uncovered patterns that point to how the aforementioned transformations are impacting candidate behavior. Candidates aren’t as willing to relocate as they used to be, they’re changing jobs faster, some seek remote/hybrid work arrangements, salaries at larger companies have become difficult to compete with, and there is less of a self-sacrificial mindset when it comes to our careers. We wanted to take these findings a step further and gather data to support the trends we were identifying. 

In the final months of 2024, The Chatham Group conducted a survey designed to measure employee motivations and predict how they will influence candidate behavior in 2025. We asked respondents ten basic questions:

1. What is your current title?
2. What industry are you in?
3. Where is your office based? (City, State)
4. Do you believe your job could be performed under a hybrid or remote work arrangement?
5. What is your current work arrangement? 
6. Does your employer offer opportunities for remote and hybrid work at any level of your organization? 
7. If you are in-person or hybrid, how long is your commute to the office?
8. Would you relocate for the right opportunity?
9. Would you take a decrease in compensation for a remote working arrangement? 
10. How would you prioritize the following factors when considering a new opportunity? Drag and drop in order of highest and lowest importance (1 being most important):
    1. Compensation
    2. Location
    3. Remote/Hybrid Flexibility
    4. People/Work Environment
    5. Job Security
    6. Room for advancement 
    7. Challenge

In last month’s edition of the newsletter, we shared our results and pointed out findings that stood out to us in our initial analysis – 

• People and Work Environment is the #1 deciding factor overall when it comes to searching for a new opportunity, with 72.7% of people listing it as one of their top 3 priorities
• 68.2% of people listed Compensation as one of their top 3 priorities when searching for a new role
• Remote and Hybrid flexibility was less important to people than we would have expected, with 68.2% of people listing it as one of their lowest priorities
• Both Challenge and Room for Advancement were rated unusually low. Are we experiencing a motivation issue across the board? 

You may have noticed that many of the survey questions are focused on remote and hybrid work arrangements. CEOs of some of the world’s most news-worthy companies are requiring employees to return to the office in droves, making the future of remote and hybrid work a topic of debate. The overarching narrative appears to be that remote and hybrid work is no longer productive or necessary, but employees are resisting the return to the office. While that makes for a great us (employees) vs. them (corporate leadership) story, we wanted to get a better read on how the manufacturing industry was trending. It turns out it isn’t as black and white as those news stories would suggest. Over 75% of respondents reported they are still operating under a remote or hybrid work arrangement, with the overwhelming majority spending at least 3 days in the office and 1-2 days working from home. Unsurprisingly, most respondents who reported being fully on-site occupy highly technical engineering positions. 

Prior to collecting the data, we hypothesized that remote and hybrid flexibility would be ranked as a high priority for candidates when considering a new job opportunity. This prediction was based on the frequent conversations we have with candidates who bought into their homes at a low interest rate and aren’t in a financial position to move. Similarly, candidates with young families are resistant to pulling their kids out of school for a move, but they also don’t want to narrow the scope of opportunities that are available to them. To our surprise, 68.2% of respondents rated remote/hybrid flexibility as one of their lowest (bottom 3) priorities. This debunks the myth that all employees are gravitating towards remote work and will be resistant to returning to the office when called to do so. In fact, there are many people who still prefer and thrive in an in-person arrangement.

There were two other areas where we saw a lower-than-expected rating: challenge and room for advancement. 54.55% of people rated room for advancement as one of their lowest priorities (bottom 3), and 63.64% of people rated challenge as one of their lowest priorities (bottom 3). We wanted to determine if these findings were highlighting a bigger concern around employee motivation, so we did some research: 

Gallup’s research indicates a downward trend in employee engagement in the United States in recent years, with a discernible decline observed during 2023 and 2024. In 2020, engagement levels peaked at 36%, but by 2023, they had decreased to 33%. This decline persisted into 2024, with engagement levels reaching an 11-year low of 30% in the first quarter. Globally, employee engagement remains a significant concern. Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace Report” reveals that only 23% of employees worldwide were engaged in their work in 2023, leaving a substantial 77% either not engaged or actively disengaged. This decline has tangible effects on productivity and employee retention. Unmotivated employees can cost companies up to $550 billion annually in the U.S. alone. Motivated employees are 87% less likely to resign, underscoring the importance of engagement in retaining talent. As a talent firm, we are passionate about getting to the root cause of employee engagement or retention issues when partnering with a new client. This serves two purposes: 1) it will identify where there is room for improvement in the existing organizational culture, and 2) it will make your organization a viable long-term home for candidates we bring into the fold. It’s a win/win. 

If remote/hybrid flexibility, room for advancement, and sufficiently challenging work aren’t motivating employees and job seekers, what is? Our data suggests people and work environment is the #1 most important factor when looking for a new job opportunity. At The Chatham Group, we are passionate about people and talent strategy because we know the impact your culture has on the overall success of your organization. According to research conducted by Paul J. Zak, published in the Harvard Business Review, high-trust teams experience 74% less stress and 50% higher productivity compared to low-trust teams. In the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, he talks about the “culture tax” of a bad team member. It’s the idea that a single underperforming or toxic team member has a disproportionately negative impact on the performance of the team. “You cannot expect someone to keep giving all of themselves if you put someone alongside them who isn’t willing to do the same.” This is why every single hire matters so much. From a talent and hiring perspective, you must: 

Hire for cultural fit and technical skill: Prioritize cultural alignment alongside expertise.

Demonstrate your culture in the hiring process: Invite your best people to participate in the interview process. 

Define clear values: Establish shared principles that guide behavior and decisions.

Promote trust: Build psychological safety for team members to take risks and share ideas.

Celebrate wins: Recognize and reward both individual and team achievements.

Encourage collaboration: Break silos and promote teamwork over competition.

Invest in development: Provide training, coaching, and growth opportunities.

And, of course, candidates continue to be highly motivated by compensation. At the same time, we know it isn’t always going to be realistic for small companies to compete with the ever-growing salaries large companies are able to provide. If you do find yourself struggling to offer competitive salaries, you are going to have to get creative in other areas. Investing in culture becomes even more critical when salary competition is high. In addition, we always advise our clients not to fall into the trap of believing that offering someone $5-10k below their target compensation to stay within budget is saving you money long-term. Get creative with other ways of showing your top candidates that you value the experience they bring to the table. This could come in the form of a sign-on bonus, offering equity or bonuses, providing additional training or education, or any type of investment that doesn’t necessarily have to upset the pay structures you have in place. Those extras will go a long way in setting a new employee up for long-term success with your organization. 

In a competitive hiring market like this, we have had to invest in discovering what motivates top talent in order to land the best people for our clients. At The Chatham Group, we know it’s not enough to be the firm that sends the most resumes in order to be a successful recruiting partner for our clients. We have identified that we are most successful with the clients who view us as not just recruiters but talent consultants. 

To learn more about our findings or schedule a talent consultation, reach out to our CREST team at crest@mrichatham.com