Aussies ignoring the corporate ladder to concentrate on work/life balance The majority of Australians are not interested in climbing the corporate ladder, according to the Randstad Workmonitor Report. AUSTRALIANS are more concerned about achieving work/life balance and having an interesting job than climbing the corporate ladder, with the nation having some of the least aspirational workers in the world. Only eight per cent of Australians are strongly focused on promotion, according to a report from recruitment company Randstad, compared to 24 per cent of people in the US. Even our close neighbours are more interested in getting a better job, with 17 per cent of New Zealanders aspiring to move up in their companies. With unemployment hovering around 5.8 per cent, Randstad director Steve Shepherd said we are more concerned with keeping our jobs rather than taking the boss's office. In Australia we see greater emphasis on things like work/life balance and having an interesting job. Australians see beyond the job and advancing their careers and are actually looking for more from their current job," he said. Maybe Australians are more comfortable in having those other things than they are about having to climb the corporate ladder all the time. And in a sign of the times, digital skills and working with data are seen to be more important than social skills by employees. Of the 6100 Australian workers surveyed, 66 per cent said their bosses consider social skills more important than they were five years ago. For digital skills, that number is 87 per cent. Mr Shepherd said the figure was surprising but indicative of the greater importance numbers and data is playing in the workplace. "But that doesn't mean we can all be geeks sitting at the computer analysing data all day," Mr Shepherd says. You still need to be able to have the social skills to translate that data and bring it into the wider business.