A major cause of the ‘Great Resignation’ is that employers are not providing staff with sufficient career progression and development opportunities.

Therefore, it is no surprise an Oracle Workplace Intelligence has found that people have felt stuck in their professional and personal lives during the pandemic. However, they are now motivated to do something about it.

Oracle surveyed more than 14,6000 employees, managers, HR leaders and C-level directors from 13 countries and found that 80% had been negatively impacted during the pandemic. Also, the survey found that twice the number of people felt they had little or no control over their future than before the pandemic.

75% noted that they felt stuck professionally – this was due to a lack of growth opportunities (25%) and being too overwhelmed to make changes (22%).

Despite this, looking forward to 2022, 85% of those surveyed by Oracle were ready to make a change and professional development was at the top their priorities.

However, they are frustrated with 76% saying they are facing major obstacles in making this change – these barriers include not seeing any opportunities to grow at their current employer (20%).

It is no surprise, therefore, that 85% are not satisfied with employer support – 34% want more learning and development at work, while 30% want more opportunities to enter new roles at their current organization.

Talking about the findings, Workplace Intelligence managing director Dan Schawbel commented:  “The results clearly show that investment in skills and career development is now a key differentiator for employers as it plays a significant role in employees feeling like they have control over their personal and professional lives.

“Businesses that invest in their employees and help them find opportunities will reap the benefits of a productive, engaged workforce.”

Oracle Cloud human capital management SVP Yvette Cameron added: “To attract and retain talent, businesses need to place a higher priority on helping employees identify and develop new skills and provide personalized career journeys so they can feel in control of their careers again.”

Use tech to support career development

Oracle’s study found that employees are open to technology supporting humans to help workers with their career development.

85% of those surveyed want technology to help them define their future. This includes identifying the skills they need to develop (36%) and recommending new ways for them to learn new skills (36%).

In fact, 82% of respondents believe robots can support career development better than humans because they make unbiased recommendations (37%) and they can find new jobs more efficiently (32%).

However, this does not mean that humans have no role to play in the future of learning.

46% still wanted advice based on personal experience and 44% thought that humans were good at identifying employees’ strengths and weaknesses.

It is clear that focusing on career development and using tech to do it is a deal breaker for employee retention; 55% of those surveyed by Oracle are more likely to stay at company that relies on advanced tech to support career growth.