There is a new business battleground: retaining talent. Companies are competing not just for customers, but also for talented employees. In September, the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%. There are currently more jobs available than qualified job seekers. What does this mean? The best talent is already employed.
These talented individuals are working. They are also quitting. The job market just experienced the highest “quit rate” since the Great Depression. Strong economies cause this kind of spike because workers have more employment options. Competition is high, and the fight is on for companies to recruit and retain their share of qualified talent. The facts are 76% of CEOs rated “retaining existing talent” as the top management challenge. Others cited “attracting qualified talent” as one of their top concerns.
Alarmingly, 40% of workers plan to look for a new job within the next six months, and 69% state they are already looking. For employers, those figures are frightening. As a company, you work hard to hire the best workers carefully, and once they’re hired, you want to keep them.
When a good employee leaves, workload increases, productivity sinks and morale can suffer. Additionally, recruiting, training, and onboarding new hires can be difficult and costly. The solution is to focus on retention. Keep your employees happy, so they don’t leave. Before implementing an employee retention plan, determine why valuable employees are leaving your company. Here are some of the most common reasons employees jump ship to new employers: