Despite concerns of a looming recession, layoffs, and hiring freezes at tech giants like Amazon, Twitter, and Meta, technologists might feel like hunkering down and holding onto their standing desks. But a new report shows tech pros are still open to changing jobs in the next 12 months.
Data released from Dice’s annual Tech Sentiment Report includes sentiment data from 950 technologists and historical trend analysis from previous sentiment and salary reports.
Here are the key takeaways that can help empower your career moves and support company leadership, HR pros, and hiring managers to build their 2023 tech talent acquisition and retention strategies.
More technologists are likely to change employers.
Technology professionals feel confident about their skills and market prospects to consider jumping employees, with 52% of respondents surveyed indicating they’re likely to switch jobs in the next year, up from 44 percent last year. The need for tech talent shows no signs of slowing, and this increase in openness to opportunity means recruiters are more likely to get a response from both active and passive candidates.
Fully remote work remains important to most technology professionals, surpassing interest in a hybrid working model.
Once seen as a temporary solution during the pandemic has remained the preferred work method in the tech world. Dice found that approximately 70% of employers plan for a hybrid future; however, only 30% of technologists prefer hybrid work. 60% of technologists surveyed ranked fully remote work as their most desired workplace setting — up from 53% in 2021. It’s hard to ignore those numbers.
Given the continuing demand for tech skills, technologists may find they have the leverage to negotiate with employers for the flexibility they want, including custom working hours and a fully remote or hybrid working model.
From an organizational standpoint — diving into why they prefer working remotely and what, if anything, would entice them to return to the office a few days a week could help retention before rolling out a return-to-the-office model. Employers will need to get creative on incentives beyond free meals and comfy office furniture to lure workers back to an office environment.
Brand, reputation, and company culture are driving factors in technology professionals’ decisions to join a new employer.
In the age of online conversation, the reputation of individuals and entities has become more critical than ever before. With the tech job market so competitive for companies seeking talent, technologists are becoming more discerning in how they view a company’s culture, reputation, and brand.
Nearly 90% of tech professionals feel an employer’s brand is essential when considering a new employer, and almost 8 in 10 said they would not apply for a higher-paying job at a company with a poor reputation. It will be challenging to attract top tech talent if you’re not investing in your brand and reputation as an employer and ensuring your company culture supports employee morale and creativity.
Time-to-hire could create more opportunities for technologists.
Dice found that most HR professionals surveyed indicated that their times-to-hire had been faster in 2022 than in 2021. That could be due to the need to fill roles, considering nearly 50% of respondents indicated that attrition rates for technology professionals in their organization are higher than in 2021.
That’s increasing pressure to find replacements and accelerating the time needed to fill roles. So technologists need to be ready not only with an updated resume and portfolio but also to consider an offer faster than seen in the past.
Salary and merit increases
Technologists know they are in demand, and they’re learning more skills than ever to increase their value at organizations and maximize their compensation packages.
While the job market for new hires rewards these skills and competes to attract talent, organizations aren’t necessarily keeping pace regarding their current employees’ salaries. In the report, Dice’s research shows that technologists received an average merit increase of only 4.8% this year versus an expected growth of 5.2%.
This salary gap could contribute to the growing openness of changing employers.
If your organization is struggling to keep up with inflation — as most companies are — offer other incentives or compensation like additional paid time off, remote and flexible work options, or training and education opportunities — all of which were ranked as important to tech professionals in the Dice 2022 Tech Salary Report.
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