Retaining talent is as important as attracting new talent because job hopping can actually be very costly for the employer. Therefore, employers should always be in touch with their employees and understand why their employees stay and for the quitters, why they quit. Below I have put together the most common reasons of why employees leave and how an employer can avoid this situation.
- Low Compensation: Everybody wants to get paid what they deserve and when an employee finds out that s/he is getting paid lower than the market value, then, this person feels undervalued and wants to leave. As an employer, if you want to keep an employee who is getting paid lower than the average, then you either should have a great company culture or a well-known brand recognition. Otherwise, as soon as your employee finds another job with higher compensation, s/he will leave.
- Lack of Career Advancement Opportunity: Employees always look for new opportunities to advance their skills so that they can move up the career ladder. Especially employees from Generation Y and Z want their employers to provide them training options or rotational programs within work so that they can improve themselves. Therefore, if an employee feels that work has started to become routine or the managers don’t give importance to his/her progress, then, s/he will want to leave.
- Relationships with Coworkers and Managers: Employees do not leave companies, they leave their managers and coworkers. If an employee has problems with his/her manager, then, it means that this employee will most likely leave soon. Also, if an employee doesn’t have any friends at work who s/he chit-chats or goes to lunch with, then, this employee is most probably not happy with his/her job and may soon leave the company.
- Job Security: Nobody wants to work in an environment in which the future of the company is unclear. Employers should demonstrate stability and growth to their employees. One way they can do this is sharing financial reports with them quarterly or informing them via monthly newsletters. The important point is to be transparent to your employees so that they can feel secure in their jobs.
- Pursue Other Opportunities: Sometimes your employees leave because they want to pursue other career opportunities. They may want to make a career change or go to graduate school to make an academic career or they may want to found their own businesses. Therefore, no matter what you do, sometimes you cannot stop them because of their personal goals or life events.
