The battle for hiring and retaining top talent is a challenging reality for most companies. Add to that aggressive recruitment strategies by established firms, the risk for turnover is ever present by opportunistic employees seeking the greener grass.
A 2018 West Monroe Partners study found that "59% [of employees] said they would leave because of a more appealing offer from a new company, not because they're seeking an escape from their current company."
To avoid the time and cost of high employee turnover, employers must be cognizant of their employees' needs, many of which are as simple as more effective communication and positive relationships both with management and with coworkers.
What might cause your employees to leave?
A gargantuan 2019 study by employee engagement platform Peakon drew from over 11 million survey comments, providing employers with the greatest desires and frustrations among employees that might cause them to seek employment elsewhere.
In order to help employers prevent high turnover, Peakon published a report that provides both regional and industry insight into what employees would most want to change about their place of employment.
1. Communication has a high impact on employee performance
In asking, "If you had a magic wand, what's the one thing that you would change about [your organization]?", Peakon found that employees would benefit most from a change in their company's communication (or lack thereof).
Of the changes employers can make to improve employee engagement, communication is one of the easiest — and perhaps one of the most important. A 2019 Dynamic Signal study, which surveyed over 1,000 US employees, found that nearly two-thirds have considered quitting solely because of a lack of workplace communication.
Employees feel a stronger sense of belonging when there is transparency between themselves and their organization. That sense of belonging translates to higher engagement, higher productivity, and ultimately higher profitability — and all it requires is that companies put more focus on keeping their employees in the know.
2. Management plays an important role in employee retention
Of particular importance to employees in terms of communication is the employee-manager relationship. A 2018 Udemy study found that almost two-thirds believed their manager lacked proper managerial training.
In order to more closely examine the responsiveness of management to employee feedback, Peakon compared employee feedback rates to responses from management, separated by industry sector.
The results showed that even the most responsive industry sectors — like technology and professional services — respond less than a third of the time, while the least responsive sectors like manufacturing and transportation leave a comment responding to feedback less than 10% of the time.
Acknowledgment by management is crucial and should be a priority to companies looking to retain their employees and avoid the high cost and lost time of higher turnover. Good communication means hiring and training managers to serve as reliable channels between employees and the company.
