UK graduates expect less flexibility from their working lives than those starting careers in China and the US, a global survey has revealed.
The poll of 3,000 graduates at consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that those from the UK had the lowest flexible-working expectations.
About 7% of Chinese new starters believed they would work mainly from home during their careers, compared to less than 1% in the UK. Overall, 75% of respondents expected to work regular office hours, with the UK riding high at 82.5%.
The report, Managing Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Work to 2020, published this week, gives a snapshot of the future workforce that, it claims, organisations must adjust to.
Michael Rendell, partner at PwC, said: “The resources that big companies will be competing for most of all in the future are people with the right skills. But there is a worrying lack of board-level thinking on how this challenge is to be met, especially given the dramatically changing expectations of the future workforce.”
In the report, Michael Poulten, international reward manager at retail giant Tesco, said the workforce of tomorrow required managing in a new way.
“[HR professionals] will need to prepare for a significantly more mobile generation with differing expectations of its employer. We will need to adapt.”
