The Reasons May Be Different Than What You Think

Ginger Brunner, CHRP

Do you know why employees leave your organization? According to a recent survey conducted by David Alpin Recruiting, there exists a disconnect between why employees leave organizations and why managers think they leave.

While insufficient pay was ranked by both employees and managers as the top of 5 factors that would cause employees to consider leaving their organization, the employees also cited lack of trust in senior leaders, unhealthy culture and uninteresting work while managers focused on unexpected job opportunities and excessive workloads.

Top 5 Reasons Employee Leave

1. Insufficient pay
2. Lack of trust in senior leaders
3. Lack of work-life balance
4. Unhealthy/undesirable culture
5. Uninteresting/unchallenging work

 Top 5 Reasons Managers Contribute to Employees Leaving

1. Insufficient pay
2. Lack of work-life balance
3. Unexpected job/career opportunity
4. Excessive workload
5. Lack of opportunity for training and development

The survey also found that 73% of 1,750 employees surveyed across Canada also agreed with the statement "people leave managers not organizations" and that over 57% of employees are at risk of leaving.

When asked what would attract them to new employers, surveyed employees cited the following:

Top 5 Things Employees are Looking in a Job

1. New challenges, variety of interesting projects
2. Advancement opportunities
3. Meaningful work opportunities to make a difference
4. Performance-based bonuses, salary increases
5. Recognition, feedback

Food for Thought:

These results suggest that opportunities exist for managers to better understand the reasons for voluntary turnover and really consider what they can do to foster employee retention within their organization.

Establishing strong and honest relationships with employees will go a long way towards building trust and better understanding the needs of employees, before they start looking elsewhere.