One in Three of Your Staff Wants to Quit - EY Survey

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Goodbye: 40% of millennials are planning to walk out of their current role in the coming year
This year’s EY employee satisfaction survey sees a big disconnect with what employees believe their workers want and what employees themselves say

More than one-third (38%) of your workers are planning to quit their jobs within the next year, according to this year's EY 2024 Work Reimagined Survey.

That’s an increase of three percentage points from last year’s figure.

This planned exodus is across all companies and sectors worldwide, says EY.

The urge to move elsewhere is particularly strong among millennials, with 40% planning to quit compared with 23% of baby boomers. 

Among employees planning to leave their employer within the next 12 months, equal numbers are seeking opportunities in the same sector (26%) as those looking to move to a new sector (25%).

As to why one in four of your employees are looking to move, one in four (39%) cite increased pay, followed by better job or career advancement opportunities (35%) and better overall wellbeing programmes (34%).

Big disconnect

There’s a big disconnect between what employers think and what their employees say is the reality. 

For example, 77% of employers believe employees feel trusted and empowered by leaders compared with just 57% of employees.

There is an even bigger disconnect when it comes to working from home. For knowledge workers, the number of employees who would opt for full-time remote work is 28% compared to 14% of employers. 

Tech companies top list

EY also looks at which business sectors employees are most likely to recommend to other workers. 

Technology hardware and software companies top this list (68%), followed by real estate construction and engineering (62%) and financial services (61%).

How CEOs can encourage staff loyalty

So, what can CEOs do to encourage staff to stay put?

The biggest cohort of knowledge workers (37%) want more incentive options recognising performance and contributions, followed by a third of employees choosing health and wellbeing (33%) and paid time-off (also 33%).

Employers, on the other hand, see investing in health and wellness benefits as their top employee-happiness priority (39%), followed by nearly the same percentage looking to improve performance-based bonuses and incentives (38%) and paid time off (31%).

Employees are much less enthusiastic than employers on the value of Generative AI, with 75% of bosses seeing it as boosting employee productivity compared with 53% of employees. Seventy-one per cent of employers see Generative AI as helping staff concentrate on high-value work, compared with 52% of employees.

Employees who work for companies that are clearly engaged with their staff are almost eight times more likely to say their company has navigated external pressures, seven times more likely to say productivity has improved significantly in the past two years and nearly six times more likely to say they are overperforming in the current economic conditions.

Roselyn Feinsod, people consultant at EY, says: “Individuals now aspire to move more fluidly between employers to gain new experiences, different skills and flexible working practices, meaning legacy talent strategies no longer cut it. Talent leads should focus less on how long an employee stays with them and more on their values, the quality of their experience and contribution to the organisation.”


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