Top 4 Reasons Employees Quit – How to Hire Staff who
Stick
A few years back, PwC published some
interesting findings of 19,000 exit interviews within their organization, where one of the key questions that
was asked of employees was the simple question, “What was their reason for leaving?” The four most common
reasons for leaving their organization were, in order of rank:
1.
Limited
career/promotion opportunities
2.
Supervisor lacked
respect/support
3.
Compensation
These findings resonate well with a later and
similarly expansive Gallup Poll, which took into
account the views of employees from 44 organizations and 10,600 business units.
Gallup found an almost identical top four reasons for employees voluntarily
leaving. Between these two substantial surveys we have a fairly good grasp on
why good employees leave voluntarily.
Of course, ordinarily staff retention is a key focus of the ‘at work’ HR Business partners and
employee relations team. However, upon knowing these top reasons for employees
leaving it becomes clear that there are real steps that recruiters can and
should be taking to not only hire staff well, but to hire staff in a ‘sticky’
way so they stay for the long term. Thus, putting recruiters in a strong
position to be able to say that they make a meaningful contribution not just to
staff attraction, but staff retention. This also raises their profile within
the organization they work in or serve.
Listed
below are the top four reasons that employees leave and four corresponding
actions that recruiters can take during the recruiting process to help
counteract these issues.
1.
Limited
career/promotion opportunities. Recruiters should check that the candidate’s
career development and advancement expectations are closely aligned with what
the organization is able to offer. That is, can the business meet the career
development needs of the candidate? If the answer is no, then this candidate
may be a risky hiring prospect who may be likely to leave prematurely.
2.
Supervisor
lacked/respect support. Recruiters should develop job descriptions with detailed manager
profiles so the employee can see their potential supervisor’s management style
and team culture – and see if it will be a good fit. Ensure that the
candidate’s preferred style of being managed matches up with the manager’s
preferred style of management as a mismatch could lead to an early voluntary
exit by the employee.
3.
Compensation. Be concerned about
candidates who are singularly focused on compensation. Why? Because, if, as a
subsequent employee, they become dissatisfied with their pay, the fact that
they don’t place much value in other areas of the brand offering like culture,
training and career development opportunities, means these other perks will not
serve as retention devices. This type of ‘money fixated applicant’ will be much
more vulnerable to premature departure than a candidate who places value in
many of areas of the brand offering.
4.
Job duties boring/no challenge. Clearly, recruiters should be encouraging line
managers to produce comprehensive job descriptions that accurately reflect the
duties, responsibilities, scope of the role, flexibility, and key contacts in
order to provide an all-round feel of the role. Also, make use of
Realistic Job Previews (RJP) which is a process where you give the employee a
view of both the positive and negative aspects of the job. Research shows that use of RJPs means the employee will be better able to cope with
the stresses and strains of the job and be more satisfied.
I believe that the modern recruiter or talent
acquisition professional can add greater value to the organizations that they
serve or work for by placing an emphasis on hiring
‘sticky’ employees who are selected to not only be good, but to actually stay for
the longer-term and enable the employer to fully realize the investment they
made in the new recruit.
Note: Please share your Views/Thoughts and leave a message with your comments/suggestions as they are always welcomed. This will keep me motivated and will encourage me to write and post more useful articles based on various topics mostly related to Technology and HRM.
Note: Please share your Views/Thoughts and leave a message with your comments/suggestions as they are always welcomed. This will keep me motivated and will encourage me to write and post more useful articles based on various topics mostly related to Technology and HRM.
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