I’m a little late to the party on this post from Spherion’s The Big Time blog. The post covers many interesting topics. To start (emphasis mine):
- 23 percent of companies are already dissatisfied with the talent available.
- One-third of HR managers mention turnover/retention as a key concern.
- On average, employers expect 14 percent of their workforce to leave within the next year.
- 31 percent of workers believe there is a turnover or retention problem at their company, and 39 percent of workers themselves expect to leave in the next year.
- Less than half (44 percent) of workers believe their company is taking steps to retain its employees.
You can see where these survey results are leading – there is a disconnect between the employer’s perception and the employee’s perception of the same company. That disconnect is illustrated in the next section of the post involving the drivers of retention. The summary from the post:
Employers and employees wholeheartedly disagree on what drives retention. In fact, employers and employees ranked every factor of retention differently in terms of priority. The most concerning of which relates to time and flexibility. Work/life balance was the most important career priority for 86 percent of workers surveyed. It is ranked first on the employees list of retention drivers after standard priorities salary and benefits. Employers on the other hand ranked time & flexibility last among all factors relating to retention of employees.
A key point to all of these stats is simple – if you have a retention problem, you have a recruiting problem. Strong companies hire the right people that are rewarded by the culture. Any misalignment in the retention factors leads to a turnover problem.