New research by Benchmark for Netengines has suggested a worrying lack of awareness by managers. 100 HR managers/directors from companies between 500 – 5000+ employees were questioned about their knowledge of staff, their current staff sourcing, resourcing and deployment processes, including skills, accreditation, and ability to re-deploy staff internally.

According to the results, one in five companies (18%) have no idea how many people work for them, half don’t know what skills their workers have, and three in five (59%) don’t know how hard their staff are working. Up to 2.4 million workers – the equivalent of the population of Birmingham, Glasgow and Leeds – have been ‘lost’ by their employers. Two in three companies can’t efficiently match employees to jobs – despite needing to in the current economic climate. Instead they spend money recruiting new staff.

Andrew Binns, Netengines’ CEO, said: “Workers used to resent being ‘just a number’. Now millions of employees aren’t even that, as far as their bosses are concerned. Their firms don’t know they’re there, what they’re good at or how much work they’re doing. Two in three firms told us this sloppiness was harming them – but they don’t have plans to do anything about it. Companies admit they could step up their output by a quarter. Businesses’ lack of knowledge about their staff also wastes skills and money. Businesses can’t afford to lose staff they can use better because the cost of recruitment is rising.”