Last updated on May 25, 2022

I find myself often wondering why employees might decide to move on to pastures new.  Are they not getting paid enough?  Do they not enjoy the job? Are there not enough prospects?  These are all questions employers will ask themselves if they find they have a higher rate of labour turnover than they want/expect.

The truth is there are multiple reasons why an employee might decide it’s time for something different and there isn’t always anything an employer can do to prevent this.  However, training staff can be an expensive business and if you are able to retain your workers then these are costs you can keep relative control over.

A recent study by Glassdoor looked into reasons why workers leave their positions and look for a new job.  The top reason for employees leaving was that they stagnated by staying in a job too long, so perhaps variation within the job role would help with retention.  There were 5 main reasons why employees chose to stay in their current job and they were as follows:

  • High job satisfaction
  • Career advancement opportunities
  • Workplace culture
  • Employer Values
  • Regular salary reviews

These are important for reasons for you to know and if you have the chance to act on the information you should. I still firmly believe that it is cheaper to retain staff than to train staff.  I think we all could have guessed that job satisfaction would be on the list, as well as career advancement and salary reviews.  The inclusion of workplace culture and employer values did surprise me a little though.  I think this shows that people are equally concerned with the attitude of others around them and how they may be perceived by others outside the workplace.

Creating a strong positive culture in the workplace looks as though it has become an important factor in whether employees choose to stay or go.  Obviously pay is still one of most deciding factors in retaining employees and the research shows that a 10% rise will usually convince an employee to stay if their eyes have been wandering elsewhere.

So it seems there are lots of ways you can avoid a revolving door for employees to come and go, and if you can manage to keep your staff, you will save in the long term.

 

 

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