These retention and job search survey results match my experience. I am advertising the same position now that I also advertised six months ago; the posting is attracting four times the number of job searching candidates. I also understand that many employees are searching for a new job. Most relevant, I believe, is the fact that employees in current organizations are not seeing the level of salary and career growth they desire.
These employees have concluded that the only way to obtain more than a 2 - 3 percent salary increase is to change organizations. When employees look around in their current organization, they also don’t see opportunity for career growth and advancement. This is because so many people have stayed with their current employment during the past couple of years of economic uncertainty.
Employee Retention Programs
According to the survey results, employers are implementing employee retention programs in their organizations to keep productive employees. Employee retention programs include competitive merit increases, promoting qualified employees, career-development opportunities and bonuses. HR professionals consider competitive salaries (59 percent) and career-development opportunities within the current organizations (47 percent) as the most effective employee retention strategies.
Interested in keeping your best employees as the job market rebounds? Employee retention will be a challenge. Employee retention does require a competitive salary and great benefits. Employee retention also requires good bosses. A key reason why employees job search is to leave their manager, not necessarily their job or company. Especially in a rebounding job market, you must pay attention to the skills and success of your managers.
Even if you are supplying competitive salaries, career growth and effective managers, the retention of your best employees requires a whole lot more. Employee involvement, recognition, training and development and pay based on performance just get you started in your quest to retain your best. These retention tips will help you retain your best employees – even in a hot job search market.
How the Retention Survey Was Conducted
SHRM and CareerJournal.com conducted the survey to determine opinions about job recovery and the effectiveness of retention strategies from the perspective of both HR professionals and employees. The survey questions were e-mailed to randomly selected SHRM members, yielding 389 responses from HR professionals, and randomly selected employees in the U.S., bearing 506 responses.
More survey results. Survey results are from a SHRM press release.
