How can we attract and keep young talents in the science sector? Work satisfaction and the inclination to change your workplace

Abstract

Summary Gradually dropping number of working age people, dropping rate of unemployment and continuously growing number of job vacancies, which remain open for a longer time, lead to a situation in which more and more often in the context of Poland people say the market belongs to the employee. What doesn’t alleviate the situation is the arrival of a new generation, the so-called millennials, on the market. Millennials differ from earlier generations both in terms of their characteristics and expectations with regard to their workplace. The fact that over a half of scientists below the age of 35 employed in national scientific institutions consider changing their work, makes it necessary to focus more on employees’ needs. The goal of this article is highlighting the aspects of work which make it possible to young scientists to achieve satisfaction from professional sphere of life and thus could prevent their outflow from the sector of science. In 2017 OPI PIB carried out a survey on a representative sample of scientific employees, which included 264 respondents born after 1981. The collected empirical materials allowed the author to analyze the expectations of young people from the sector of science with regard to their workplace. The assessments of scientists who consider changing their employer with the assessments of people who don’t have such plans have been compared. The conducted survey leads to the conclusion that young people should above all be given the opportunity to develop and work towards achieving their own scientific aspirations. It is also necessary to guarantee the feeling of stability of employment and satisfactory remuneration. What also turns out to be significant is the organization of space, as well as providing flexible work conditions and recognition from the superiors. Satisfying at least some of the highlighted proposals won’t be possible without introducing systemic changes. Failure to intervene in such a way will lead to a situation in which the national sector of science will in the nearest years be gradually losing valuable employees, which will be migrating to the company sector and foreign scientific institutions.