Essential Report – Employee Loyalty Edition

Today’s Essential Report comes in with primaries running Labor’s way 50/34 (Coalition down 1) to wash into a TPP running 61/39 the same way (ALP up 1). Two week rolling sample size is 1805 giving an MoE in the vicinity of 2.3%.

Essential also asked a bag full of other questions, with those about employer/employee loyalty being something a bit unusual but pretty interesting.

How would you rate your loyalty to your employer? (from a sample of 545)

On the crosstabs Essential said:

Respondents aged 50 years and over were more likely to indicate that they were very loyal to their employer and would not consider leaving (46%), as were females (36%).

Employee loyalty was related to size of their employer. As the number of employees increases, loyalty decreased. 47% of those working in organisations with 1-20 employees said they were very loyal compared to only 24% in organisations with 500 employees.

And how would you rate your employer’s loyalty to staff? (n=545)

On the crosstabs:

Respondents aged 50 years and over were more likely to indicate that their employer is very loyal and would only sack people as a last resort (43%) as were females (39%).

More than half (51%) of the 18 – 24 year olds surveyed rate their employer as quite loyal – but would sack staff to cut costs.

Here again, perceived loyalty was related to size of organisation. Only 6% of those in organisations with 1-20 employees said their employer was not very loyal compared to 30% of those with more than 500 employees.

Thinking about your own employer – if your employer had to cut costs because of the global financial crisis, which of the following actions would you favour: (n=545)

On the crosstabs:

Respondents in full time work were more likely to indicate that their employer should reduce total staff numbers (40%), while part time workers were more likely to indicate that their employer should put all staff on reduced hours to cut costs because of the global financial crisis (61%).

Respondents aged 25 – 34 were more likely to indicate that their employer should reduce total staff numbers (43%), while respondents aged 50 years and over were more likely to indicate that their employer should put all staff on reduced hours (57%).

Females surveyed were more likely to indicate that their employer should put all staff on reduced hours (53%).

There was two other questions asked this week:

Would you support or oppose the Government giving Australians a vote on becoming a Republic within the next few years?

Crosstabs:

Males were more likely to support the Government giving Australians a vote on becoming a Republic within the next few years (60%) while females were more likely to oppose the move (27%).

Labor voters were more likely to be in favour of the Government giving Australians a vote on becoming a Republic within the next few years (66%) while Coalition voters were more likely to oppose the move (41%).

Respondents aged 50 years and over were more likely to oppose the Government giving Australians a vote on becoming a Republic within the next few years (31%), while respondents aged 18 – 24 were more likely to indicate they ‘don’t know’ on the issue (39%).

Thinking about whaling, do you think Australia should agree or disagree to allowing Japan to hunt more whales in the northern hemisphere so long as it leaves the Southern Ocean alone?