Why Employees Leave and How to Keep Them

Although employees leave their jobs for a variety of reasons, it’s long been thought that the #1 reason was due to a bad relationship with their manager.  A recent survey conducted by LinkedIn, however, found that the #1 reason employees leave is because they want greater opportunities for advancement.

LinkedIn surveyed more than 7,000 people from five countries, including the US, UK, India, Canada and Australia.

Other surveys reveal additional reasons along that same theme: bored and unchallenged by the work; lack of opportunities to use skills and abilities; low meaningfulness of job; and management’s lack of recognition of employee performance.

We all know the high cost of turnover. But even if an employee doesn’t leave physically, without clear opportunities for career growth and development, many are just “going through the motions” and are not engaged in their jobs, or in the company. These partially or fully disengaged employees are also costly, both in direct costs related to productivity and in the indirect cost of low employee morale. A Gallup Report, The State of the American Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders, indicated that “of the approximately 100 million people in America who hold fulltime jobs, only 30% are engaged and inspired at work.”  The other 70% are either not engaged (50%) or actively disengaged (20%).

So what’s the answer? Showing employees you care about their career goals and interests by creating development opportunities and clearly defined career paths is a great way to re-engage your employees and prevent your top talent from walking out the door. Next time we’ll talk more specifically about how to do that.