Losing Your Best - A Real Risk "Escaping" Workers - Subject of National Concern
Copyright 2004

A growing chorus of concern has occupied the attention of business news writers for the past several months-workers, pinned in place by the depressed job market over the past few years, seem poised to run from their employers at the first light of an improving job market!

A recent study by Florida-based Spherion, indicates the scope of the problem: Their study found that 51% of the 3,000 workers in their sample wanted to leave their jobs, and 75% of those indicated that they were likely to leave in a year or less.

If your company were to lose even 25% of its workers in the next year, how would it affect you? How would you replace them? Deepening the concern is long-standing research that shows that your best employees are usually among the first to leave-they have more options!

While you are working to retain your best, consider these options: Measure their characteristics-if worst-case scenarios turn into reality, at least you will know what you are looking for in a replacement. Use the results of this program for career planning-good people are less likely to leave, if they can see a clear plan to move upward in your business. Use this knowledge to help you offer internal promotions when positions do come open. The more your employees see that you are committed to keeping and improving existing staff, the better your chances for improving retention. Finally, invest in improving your managers-most studies show that people don't leave jobs-they leave managers!