We recently conducted a survey of Indiana business leaders and employees, this is something we do about every other month on different topics. The latest survey was on employee issues and perceptions employees had of their employers. One of the things we measure every survey is the Business Confidence Index. This is a one number wrap up of how confident employees and business leaders are in their business. Specifically, it measures three aspects of business, demand for products, relationship with customers, and relationship with employees. The Business Confidence Index for this latest survey, conducted in July, is 58%. That is the lowest the Business Confidence Index has ever been since we started measuring it in December of 2010.
One of the measures of the Business Confidence Index is perceptions that employee morale will increase in the next six months. Only 42% felt employee morale would increase, the lowest it has ever been.
We also measured loyalty by key roles in the organization and say a significant decline in loyalty for Middle Managers and Supervisors. Middle Managers dropped from 55% to 41% Truly Loyal and Supervisors dropped from 45% to 39% Truly Loyal.
Clearly this trend is not ideal and I think a lot of companies are going to be feeling the crunch of key talent being very frustrated and potentially leaving the organization. In fact, when asked about one in four Middle Managers and one in three Supervisors planned to look for a job in the next year.
The times right now are very uncertain and a lot of business leaders and employees are concerned and worried about the future of their business and themselves. Unfortunately, I do not see much of an improvement until after the election and things, hopefully, begin to stabilize.
