Increasingly, employers of secretarial and skilled support staff are struggling to recruit people with the "right attitude", according to the latest SecsLife survey from Gordon Yates and the Guardian.

The research found that 30% of employers say that, over the past year, they have found it more difficult to employ skilled support staff. It found that overwhelmingly it is the "right attitude" that is in short supply, defined by words such as: enthusiasm; ability to multi-task; sense of responsibility; thoroughness; common sense; initiative; down to earth approach.

The study revealed that it is not just employers who are dissatisfied – many of their staff are too. The reason, according to the SecsLife survey, is that bosses often fail to encourage or appreciate their support staff. In short, bosses aren’t showing enough of the "right attitude" either.

Richard Grace, joint managing director of recruitment consultancy Gordon Yates, says: "Very few employers actively encourage secretaries to stay with their company. They seem to accept that secretaries have a ‘shelf life’ and will leave after a few years. So when they do find that elusive person with the right skills, they are unlikely to take active steps to keep them."

The SecsLife survey found that only 25% of companies take specific measures, usually financial, to encourage support staff to stay. It found that support staff salaries are, on average, 6.9% higher than 2006. Taking into account a RPI of 3.9% (Office of National Statistics, September 2007), the rise in real terms is a modest 3%.

It found that 38% of companies took on more staff in 2007, only 11% cut back, 30% of companies plan to employ more support staff in 2008.

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