Turnover: it’s an important metric for any organisation’s health and one that executives across the business often scrutinise. If you feel confused answering questions like, “why are employees leaving,” you’re not alone. It’s hard to know what’s right when the research is flip-flopping, suggesting one minute that employees leave because of managers, and the next, that’s not the case. We at Culture Amp have even weighed in on this debate in the past. If your head is spinning, don’t worry. Ours was, too.
So we undertook our largest study on employee turnover to date, aiming to provide some much-needed context around these challenging questions. We found that:
- There are 3 key reasons employees leave
- When it comes to keeping managers, inclusion is most important
- Employees that you want to keep most are more likely to be vocal about their dissatisfaction
- If you want to predict who is going to leave, you should just ask them
To discover these insights, we analysed the survey responses of over 300,000 employees who voluntarily exited over the 15 months prior to COVID. We compared both their exit survey responses as well as their engagement survey responses before leaving. Then we incorporated other characteristics we knew about the individuals, like their tenure, manager status, and if the People team considered their exit to be regrettable. We busted some long-established myths – no, employees don’t leave because of managers – and found insights that no one has reported on before. Now, let’s dive in.
There are 3 common reasons employees leave
When comparing those who left to those who stayed, there were three key reasons they left:
- Career growth: Employees who left were less favourable on the question “I believe there are good career opportunities for me at [Company].” Additionally, a lack of Growth (in their career or development opportunities) was selected by 1 in 3 employees as a top reason for leaving at the time of exit.
- Role expectations: Unsurprisingly, they were also less favourable when asked if “I am happy with my role relative to what was described to me.”
- Inclusion: Those who left were less likely to feel like they belonged at the organisation.
On average, those who left were 7 points lower on these questions than those who stayed on.
This is an excerpt from ‘Why your best employees are leaving and how to stop it’ by Fresia Jackson, Lead Research People Scientist, Culture Amp. Read the article in full here.
