Elite workers to widen employee benefits gap by 2020, report suggests

The top employees in businesses will be well-placed to demand more in salary and benefits than ever before by 2020, according to a new report by insurance provider Friends Provident.

Flexibility, self-motivation and a thirst for knowledge were highlighted as key characteristics of the "elite", while employees who feel excluded were characterised by a sense of reluctance to change, inertia and naivety.

It also suggested that those employees who feel disengaged had their attitude supplemented by a sense of complacency and an unwillingness to change.

Ian Brinkley, of the Work Foundation, one of the experts who contributed to the report, said: "I certainly see a widening gap between the flexible knowledge worker and the apathetic excluded worker - which is typically the young, semi-skilled male.

"This is worrying, given the lack of foreign skilled workers coming into the country by 2020, and could be a missed opportunity for many people to put themselves in a strong positions both personally and professionally." Back