Why Do People Leave Their Jobs?

Employee engagement and retention are two of the most important parts of an HR manager’s role within a business. Without great staff who are prepared to go above and beyond, companies can struggle to perform.

However, no matter how well you recruit and maintain your workforce, there will always be employees who leave. The key to helping your business continue running smoothly in these events lies in doing everything possible to minimise the reasons for staff to look for other roles. If you are providing the best possible place for them to be, why would they leave?

Pay your workers fairly

You can offer all of the opportunities for career advancement and up-skilling that you want, but if your staff aren’t paid fairly they will not stick around. In surveys from all over the world, this continues to be one of the main reasons for employees leaving jobs, especially if they can find similar roles that offer them noticeably more money for their efforts.

This has been confirmed in an April 8 report from recruitment specialists Robert Half that details the effect inadequate remuneration has on employee retention. Issues like this can be solved with HR consulting, with experts able to plan salary programs that ensure your best staff cannot be lured by the competition.

Robert Half found that last year, exactly a quarter of the CFOs they surveyed lost good employees to jobs that paid more. When employees were asked what was likely to cause them to move jobs, 38 per cent selected poor salary or other benefits, highlighting the need to pay workers fairly.

“Highly skilled professionals have options in the current hiring environment,” advised Paul McDonald, senior executive director for Robert Half. “To attract and retain employees, businesses must proactively benchmark salaries and ensure they are offering competitive pay. If a manager can’t recall the last time wages were evaluated, it’s probably been too long.”

Keep employees engaged

Staff need to be interested in their role in order to properly serve the company they work for. Distracted employees can affect other staff, which has a noticeable affect on productivity. If workplace culture is significantly affected, this could prompt staff to leave.

Engaged Marketing recently conducted a survey on the state of employee engagement within Australia and found that the country’s workers may be struggling to stay invested in the businesses they are part of. Little more than half of the 3,361 workers questioned in the research (55.3 per cent) considered themselves to be loyal to the company the work for.

This has significant implications for businesses around the country, suggesting that more effort needs to be put into keeping Australians engaged.

“Employees stated loyalty is low, which not only means that many are thinking of leaving, but you also have to wonder how productive an employee with this mindset is going to be while they’re still working there,” explained Engaged Marketing Managing Director Christopher Roberts.

“Staff engagement is more than just staff satisfaction, it’s about ensuring staff feel genuinely valued, are having some of their core human needs met and understand the role they play in delivering organisation’s business strategy.”

So how can this be managed? Gallup believes that inspiring employee engagement is all down to the manager as they have considerable influence over their employees. The firm estimates that in the companies they have surveyed, managers account for up to 70 per cent of the variance in engagement scores, meaning that if they are not interested it is unlikely that their staff are.

Therefore, it is worth focusing on hiring and retaining excellent managers, as it is up to them to keep the rest of the workforce engaged and motivated.