Employers Could Be Blindsided by Turnover

Your employees have struggled through the past few years of belt-tightening and downsizing all while being asked to work harder, smarter, or perhaps just longer. Experts now say there are signs of life in the job market and employees may now start doing what they have been dreaming about for years: quit. The problem is that most employers probably will not see it coming.

 

“Most companies are probably not fully prepared for all the…pent up turnover that is likely to come when the job market really turns around,” said David G. Allen, a management professor at the University of Memphis who has studied employee turnover.

 

Some employers seem to be complacent now as to IF their employees will be able to find a better job somewhere else. For as many bosses that have complained about how hard it is to find good workers, even fewer have paid much attention to keeping the good employees that they currently have.

 

“People are saying that they can’t find the right talent, and yet when they do they don’t take such good care of it,” said Sandi Edwards, Senior VP of AMA Enterprise, an arm of the American Management Association that helps companies improve their workforce.

 

Employers have not had to work too hard recently to keep good workers. The unemployment rate hit a high of 10% in the fall of 2009 as the nation was coming out of a recession and has continued to remain elevated even as the economy has slowly added jobs. The jobless rate stood at 7.7% in February 2013, with 12 million Americans actively looking for work.

 

This has left many workers grateful to just have a job with less focus on finding a new job even if they did not like their current one. The job market is steadily improving, but Allen cautions that it is not strong enough yet for employees to have the upper hand yet.

 

Some employers may be aware that the risk of losing their best employees is on the horizon, but they are not necessarily taking proactive steps to help safeguard against it.

 

A recent survey of 2100 CFOs found that 38% said retaining valuable staff was a top concern for the next year, but only 13% said improving morale and engagement was a top concern.  Paul McDonald, Senior Executive Director of staffing firm Robert Half International feels it is a mistake to not work harder to make employees happy. “The main reason people leave is unhappiness with management,” according to McDonald.

 

It is not necessarily a bad thing though for some unhappy employees to quit. Typically workers who are just there because they can not find a better job are not usually the best employees. They characteristically do not perform as well or they do not engage in things that falls outside of their job description.

 

Peter Hom, a management professor at Arizona State University, noted that the first employees to quit when the job market improves are usually the ones that you least want to lose since the most valuable employees are often the most sought after by others.

 

Many researchers argue that it is not just money that keeps workers loyal, although a nice pay package and good benefits help as well. Allen said that his research has shown that workers also place a large amount of importance on relationships with their colleagues, especially with bosses.

 

Smart companies need to make sure they are making their employees feel valued. If they are asking for more from them then they have to engage employees more and it does not have to be just in terms of money.