The 2024 Lubricants Talent Report by ABN Resource surveyed a global audience of professionals working in the lubricants, additive and base oils markets. This edition reports some significant changes in the workplace market. The insights aim to help employers and employees shape their workforce and careers in line with what the current and future market requires.
Job satisfaction is on the rise, with 63% of professionals reporting satisfied or very satisfied scores, a notable jump from 48% in 2023. It was a good year for pay increases, too. The lubricants sector has witnessed substantial pay rises in 2024, with average salaries climbing by 11% across the board.
A concerning trend appeared in mid-management. They feel squeezed with work pressures and receive lower pay increases than executives in the C-suite at a time when pay is the number one reported reason to change and move jobs. Career progression and professional development are slower than mid-management would like. Combining a lack of professional and financial progression has the potential to be a big problem if companies seek to retain and attract the great talents it has in place. If not handled correctly, we could lose the next generation of executive leaders.
Only 21% of the survey respondents said they were actively looking for a new role, down from 37% of active job seekers in 2023. This highlights challenges in hiring and focuses effort on networking & headhunting to tap into passive search talent to fill jobs. If your hiring strategy is just to advertise jobs, you are missing out on the biggest part of the candidate market by not headhunting.
Sustainability, the hot topic of the sector for many years, fell out of the top three challenges facing the industry. Participants voted for growth, geopolitical issues and workforce attraction & retention as the top three challenges. Although people in 5001+ employee firms ranked sustainability as second to growth, SME’s voted sustainability as less of a challenge. We all have a role to play in sustainability. Continued focus and effort in sustainability should not be neglected. Sustainability could be a key contributor to solving the number one challenge in the sector: growth.
Interestingly, diversity and inclusion (D&I) did not rank as a top concern. Only 5% of participants flagged it as a significant challenge. In an industry reporting workforce attraction and retention challenges, raising awareness of D&I and implementing D&I into a company culture could help solve talent attraction, improve workplace performance and profitability.
Download the full report from the ABN Resource website vis the link below…
